Karoo on The Singemonkey

November 16, 2024

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 19:11:15 +0000

Karooveld

September 05, 2024

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 08:47:20 +0000

Three Sisters in the evening and Colesberg in the morning.

January 03, 2023

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 19:05:24 +0000

On our way home across the stark Karoo, green from heavy rains and promising more of the same. Great times were had in Jozi with the incredible hospitality of our dear friends @sophdex and @ezlemoen … looking forward to seeing our foolish cats though. After which I’ll post more Kruger pics.

January 23, 2021

Sat, 23 Jan 2021 22:57:45 +0000

Klipspringers. Look at the little ballet hooflets.

Found this as well, while scrolling through Lightroom. I got some great footage of Klipspringers over Christmas. Now I just have to bring myself to face Davinci and edit that stuff. In the meanwhile, here’s a pic I took in 2012 at about the same place in the Karoo National Park - Klipspringerpas. These are basically the Southern African equivalent of mountain goats. The name means ‘rockjumper.’ Those dainty little hooves do great work for leaping about cliffs and boulders.

December 28, 2020

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 09:16:47 +0000

A spiky plant that I know not.

December 28, 2020

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 09:11:21 +0000

All the thorny acacias in the Karoo are blooming with these tiny yellow pom-pom flowers.

December 25, 2020

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 12:02:38 +0000

Eland are pretty spectacular. The second-largest antelope (after the Giant Eland of West Africa). They’re recovering their numbers in South Africa after being nearly wiped out through hunting by the end of the 19th century.

Gotta say, I found the operation and layout of my Fuji XE1 much more understandable from the get-go than the Nikon Z50. It’s really great for us olds who grew up on film gear that Fujifilm makes cameras that use film-camera control layouts as a starting point. Very lucky.

December 25, 2020

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 11:56:36 +0000

I also brought my little Fuji XE1. We arrived at the park pretty late and got to see the Karoo turn gold in the evening light. Course with the Fuji there’s no autofocus and no image stabilisation. So I felt I was pretty lucky to get anything close to sharp pics as these were all handheld grab shots.

December 25, 2020

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 11:41:35 +0000

Merry Xmas. Meet our new friend, El Gordo, a Bibron’s Tubercled Gecko (as far as we can work out). One chonky boi. We’ve escaped the plague in Cape Town to The Karoo National Park this year. No stops from Cape Town and the camp here is very sparsely populated for maximum social distancing. El Gordo has grown fat from the light above the braai that gives him a smorgasbord of tasty bugs. A big kudu with his corkscrew horns just wandered by the front of our place as I was pulling pics from the camera this morning. I’ve borrowed my dad’s new Nikon Z_50 and I’ll be trying to shoot some good quality footage with it over the next few days.

November 19, 2019

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 19:58:19 +0000

Sometimes we have to venture into weird little SA village pubs and meet the locals so you don’t have to. Throwback to a few years back on a winter night in Nieu Bethesda. Apart from the TV there’s not much to tell you it was taken after 1955.

April 21, 2019

Sun, 21 Apr 2019 09:57:46 +0000

What the heck was in my morning coffee?

April 21, 2019

Sun, 21 Apr 2019 09:04:45 +0000

Road trippin’ in the trusty White Whale to Prince Albert for a wedding. Sun going down over the Karoo.

August 15, 2018

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 19:34:02 +0000

An early throwback to our last trip to Nieu Bethesda in 2015. It’s an amazingly relaxing place to be in the winter freeze with the place practically empty. @withoutaleaf was well prepared from film sets for the outdoor cold. .

September 15, 2017

Fri, 15 Sep 2017 16:18:56 +0000

Another oldie while I’m at it. In SA we have two species of zebra - the well-known plains zebra and this one, the Mountain Zebra. It’s much higher contrast with pure white between the black stripes. They’re like the archetypal zebra despite being quite rare.

January 04, 2017

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 19:39:55 +0000

’s at the where the next of’s are being trained

January 04, 2017

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 13:58:13 +0000

When your #hotel has a runway, but only 25MB free #wifi?

January 04, 2017

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 12:49:31 +0000

#strange scenes at the #gasstation. COUS: #cacti of unusual size.

January 04, 2017

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 11:28:55 +0000

Going