| As I drove northwards from Garies to Kamieskroon, my eyes darted
frequently to the side, checking out for signs of wild flowers. I was expecting to see at
least flowers along the side of the road, if not colourfully painted hills. What greeted
me were the distant desolated brownish landscape and dull-greenish hills. The crop for the year was bad as rainfall had only been half the usual. We
visited the wild flower reserve and found that the areas around Cape Town had better
bloom. We found only 2 spots with flaming orange flowers. The one at Lilifontein covered a
bigger area and was more spectacular.
Our stay at Kamieskroon Hotel had a little surprising reward
though. Our visit happened to coincide with the photo workshop conducted by Collar
Swart and Freeman Paterson. After a sumptuous dinner, we were invited by the friendly
hotel staffs to join in the slide presentation. 2 projectors were used and they were well
synchronized with the music. Freeman presented his eerie slides of the Ghost Town in
Luderitz while Collar showed us, the deprived and unlucky visitors, the flowers of
Namaqualand. |
