Swartberg plaashek

 Suid-Afrika bied inwoners sowel as besoekers 'n ongelooflike verskeidenheid van landskappe om te verken, geniet en foto's van te neem.  Hierdie foto is geneem oppad na die Swartbergpas vanaf Oudtshoorn.

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Love dance

Ostriches pair up for life and during the mating season a male ostrich would do a love dance for his female. He would go down on his haunches, open his wings and sway from side to side to get her attention. Its always funny when you visit one of the ostrich show farms at Oudtshoorn and you get an ostrich approaching a group with their wings open and head down like this. Its probably similar to a love dance and…

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CJ Langenhoven

When we visited Oudtshoorn in December I got to go to the museum in the home of the former Afrikaans writer CJ Langenhoven for the first time since I was in primary school. His house, Arbeidsgenot ("the pleasure of work") was left to "all people with a love for Afrikaans" by his widow after her death in 1950 and was opened as a museum in 1955. Cornelis Jakobus Langenhoven was born on 12 August 1873. He started out working as…

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Schoemanshoek

Schoemanshoek is a fertile valley just outside Oudtshoorn on the way to the Cango Caves. The area is mainly a farming area with ostriches and tobacco being farmed here historically. Even though most of the farmers in the valley still farm with ostriches and some crops, most have developed guest houses and restaurants on their properties. The nice thing about staying in Schoemanshoek is that visitors are right out in farming are. Most establishments are decorated with antiques while visitors…

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Swartberg Pass toll house

The ruin of the old toll house on the Swartberg Pass (here and here) can be found at the start of the pass on the Oudtshoorn side of the mountain. I would have wanted to spend some more time at the ruin getting photographs, but it was hot (around 40 degrees Celsius) and the family was getting impatient in the car.

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Old grave yard

I was driving around the Klein Karoo town of Oudtshoorn looking for something interesting to photograph when I came across this old cemetery. It was surrounded by businesses and a couple of houses with a stone wall and old steel gate in the front. Cemeteries, especially old historic ones, fascinate me, so this was a huge find.The graves were made mostly of sandstone and the majority were so weathered and eroded that you couldn't see what was on them. I…

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Exercé Perfection

Although Oudtshoorn is only a big town and not a major city, it houses one of South Africa's biggest military bases. It also has an invantary school where a part of South Africa's military forces get their training. This statue of a soldier is situated on the road outside the entrance to the base. The plaque reads:Exercé Perfection"Where the sun-bathed hights of Swartbergguard the wide and fertile plainyou are training future leadersfor our armies' might and main".GPS: 33°34'52.81"S, 22°11'30.18"E

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