The Karoo | a harsh beauty

You know how it goes with birthdays, some are uneventful, others are nice but then you get the ones that are simply memorable.

Last year’s birthday was memorable. Besides being a “milestone” birthday, it was touching that my brothers and my favourite sister-in-law came all the way from Ireland to celebrate with me  and Mr T and boy did we celebrate! It was an entire month of wonderful moments and happy memories.

We went on fabulous crack of dawn open Landrover game drives in the Karoo, star gazed in Sutherland, visited the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere and indulged in a delicious lunch at a beautiful wine Farm in Oudtshoorn.

There were also 3 days in Cape Town, just me and the big brother and a hair-rising whale watching boat trip in Plettenberg Bay. Truly a birthday I will never forget.

“At first encounter the Karoo may seem arid, desolate and unforgiving, but to those who know it, it is a land of secret beauty and infinite variety.”
― Eve Palmer, Plains of Camdeboo: The Classic Book of the Karoo

Note to self – remember to beg, steal or borrow a very long lens next time you’re photographing creatures in this immense landscape because an 85mm prime lens,while fabulous for portraits, just doesn’t cut it for wildlife photography.

The vastness of the Karoo is awesome. It’s thorny, dry, rocky, harsh and breathtakingly beautiful.

“To the complaint, ‘There are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.”
― Ansel Adams

Steel flowers of the Karoo – the ubiquitous windpumps scattered across this vast landscape are a common and beloved sight to many.

“The air is so dry, so clear, and there’s so few people, almost no lights. And you can lie on your back and look up and see the Milky Way. All the stars like a splash of milk in the sky. And you see them slowly move. Because the Earth is moving. And you feel like you’re lying on a giant spinning ball in space.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

 

“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate