Kgalagadi Cape 2021

This has been the year of the great move. For someone born and raised in KZN then some major adjustments could have been expected but……… there have been none. I have not had the slightest twinge about possibly making the wrong decision and everything about the Cape just appeals to me. The order, the cleanliness and the people.

So, what with a knee replacement in May, dodging KZN riots in July, Kruger in August, much birding activity around the Peninsula and as well as family time, I have enjoyed an action packed year.

So, much entertainment to be had.

Sunday, 28th November

This is to be a concentrated photographic trip to Kgalagadi to be spent just with Steven, Renette’s younger brother and me. So at 6am I set out alone for the day trip to Upington, some 900Kms distant. I have never travelled this part of the country and being a keen observer of new places, I look forward to the trip. Past Malmesbury and Picketberg, I enter the beautiful Olifants River Valley in which lie the lovely towns of Citrusdal and Clanwilliam. At Vanrynsdorp I turn right and after mounting a steep escarpment I reach Calvinia set against some mountains. From here to the Orange River stretches 400Kms of…….. nothing. Flat, bare and featureless, I do not see a single soul over the entire length of road, other that the odd car that passes. So that green ribbon of life which is the Orange comes as a welcome relief as I enter the vineyards of Keimos and finally the neat and clean town of Upington.

At 5pm Steven lands at the airport and we then retire to a B & B on the banks of the river where we prepare ourselves for intensive photography in the days ahead. The next morning we stock up with groceries at the shopping mall before heading north towards Kgalagadi and Twee Rivieren, 250kms distant. We are now poised for a few days of uninterrupted photographic bliss in this remarkable part of the world.