July 24-25: On the Road Again

As the picture above reveals, I am “On the Road Again” – I can’t get Willie Nelson’s song (or at least his version) out of my head. Finally got that precious document that I needed (2.5 weeks later) and then spent last two days driving north to Namibia.

In addition to the hiking I reported on last time, I should note that I did use that extra time in and around Cape Town to work some more on the Green Dragon by installing a new solar charge controller (regulates energy flow from solar panel to liesure battery) and DC-to-DC charger (regulates energy flow from the engine’s alternator via the duel engine batteries to the liesure battery) and, of course, a new water filter and pump for the potable water tank in the vehicle. All good things to have and to have working well.

This is a short post just to catch us up on the past couple/few days before I go dark for the new few days – or at least I am expecting to be dark, but you never know. Now that I am in Namibia, I don’t know how well the cell service will be, so I could be surprised. BTW, I just crossed the border post and cruised right through in about 20 minutes. No other vehicles crossing at this early hour so it was a very relaxed and pleasant experience.

Basically, I just wanted to post a few pictures about the region I drove through known as Namaqualand. This the northwest corner of South Africa in the Northern Cape Province. Unfortunately, due to my delay in Cape Town, I had to bypass my planned visit to Namakwa National Park, but I did manage to glimpse some of what the Park is famous for. The Park and surrounding region is part of the Karoo semi-desert and is dominated by succulent vegetation. The succulent Karoo is dominated by dwarf, leafy-succulent shrubs, and annuals, predominantly Asteraceae, popularly known as Namaqualand daisies, which put on spectacular flower displays covering vast stretches of the landscape in spring-time (August–September) after good rains in the winter.

To my good fortune – and I needed some after Cape Town fiasco – I caught a few glimpses of early flowering in a few patches, which was a tantalizing tease of what will undoubtedly follow in several weeks. Here are a few pictures the tease. Note, it is possible that later in September, when Nancy, Steve and Ki are passing inland through the Tankwa-Karoo section of the desert we might catch more of the display.

Here’s a picture of my “wild” campsite my last night in South Africa. Simply drove a few km off the highway into the boulder-strewn hills for a nice hideaway.

New Species:

• Dusky sunbird
• Karoo eremomela