As part of our Rovos Rail trip through Namibia in May 2019 we stopped at Keetmanshoop. This is a small town in the Karas region of southern Namibia. The town was named after Johann Keetman, one of the early traders and benefactor of the town.

“The Rovos rail safari – a journey of discovery through historic and scenic areas of southern Africa from the savannahs of the highveld to the Atlantic Ocean reuniting by rail the republics of South Africa and Namibia.”

The Karas region is semi-arid and receives on average 150mm of rain per annum. In addition to the historic significance of this town, one of the main attractions is the Quiver Tree forest some 14 kilometres north of the town.

This forest is described as a spontaneous forest, a term which refers to the undisturbed development of natural forests where direct and indirect human influences are removed or forbidden.

“Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.” ~ Roman Payne

We spent around an hour and a half walking around the Quiver Tree forest on the Farm Gariganus. This forest was declared a national monument in 1955. The large Aloe dichotoma has a common name Quiver tree. It gets its name from bushman who made quivers from the branches of this aloe as holders for their poisonous arrows.

The Quiver tree is probably the most spectacular aloe species because of its size and sculptural form. Aloe dichotoma or the Quiver tree is a species of aloe indigenous to southern Africa. It is only found in the Northern Cape Richtersveld region and the Namib desert around the South African-Namibian border. This aloe prefers well drained, rocky terain.

“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. ” ~ Albert Einstein

The thick succulent leaves of the Quiver Tree grow in a rosette at the end of a long branch. The branches and trunk have a soft fibrous core which can hold a great quantity of water. This aloe has two adaptations to help it cope with the extreme heat. The first is that the branches are thickly covered in a fine white powder to reflect rather than absorb the sun’s rays. Secondly, the leaves are located at the ends of the branch at the top of three tree so as to catch each passing breeze and are farthest from the heat of the ground.

This is a perennial succulent which can grow from three to nine metres in height, and at times even reach 12 metres in height. The bark on the trunk forms beautiful golden brown scales, but the edges of these scales are razor sharp.

The crown of a mature Quiver tree has a rounded canopy composed of a mass of densely grouped repeatedly forked branches. The second part of the latin name of this species is dichotoma. (dichotomous meaning forked). The blue-green leaves are arranged in a rosettes at the end of each terminal forked branch. The inflorescences of tubular bright yellow flowers appear in June and July each year. The flowers produce a lot of nectar, which is a valuable source of food to various birds, and insects such as bees and locusts and even baboons, and so play the an important ecological role in the area.

Large trunks of dead trees are also hollowed out and used as a natural fridge. Water, meat and vegetables can be stored inside it. The fibrous tissue of the trunk has a cooling effect as air passes through it, a so-called natural fridge.

When this aloe grows to around two metres in height, the plant starts to dichotomously branch. The trunk is a massive unbranched central stem which supports dense canopies of forked branches. This stem is fibrous and has no growth rings so this aloe cannot be aged by that means. The way to approximately age a Quiver Tree is to count the number of forks from the main trunk along the longest branches. Each fork is estimated to take about 50 years to develop. This method would measure the age of most of the Quiver Trees at between 150 and 250 years old.

“Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed,—chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. During a man’s life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees—tens of centuries old—that have been destroyed.”~ John Muir

The aloe dichotoma is one of three species of Quiver Tree. The other two species being the Aloe pillansii (Giant quiver tree) and the Aloe ramosissima (Maiden quiver tree).

After a fascinating wander around the Quiver Tree forest we got back on the Rovos rail train at Keetmanshoop and travelled down to Holoog where the train stopped again this time for our afternoon excursion to see the Fish River Canyon which is also located in southern Namibia, equidistant between Windhoek in Namibia and Cape Town in South Africa.

The Fish River canyon consists of an upper canyon, and a lower canyon. The upper canyon is around 550 metres deep and the lower canyon is about 380 metres deep. The canyon is about 160 kilometres long varying in width to a maximum width of 27 kilometres.

“Come, see the north-wind’s masonry, Out of an unseen quarry evermore furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work. So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he for number or proportion.”~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Fish river flows intermittently along the canyon floor. The water comes from late summer flooding. For the rest of the year, the river becomes a chain of small pools of water.

The Fish River Canyon is considered the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon in the United States. The oldest rocks of this region existed long before today’s continents were formed by the break-up of the super continent, Gondwana. The basement rocks are around 2.4 billion years old about half the age of the Earth.

Formation of the canyon began around 350 million years ago but the Fish River runs in a bed which is about 1.5 billion years old. Over millions of years, the river has cut into the Namaqualand Metamorphic Complex. The Namaqua Mountains were completely eroded about 650 million years ago leaving a vast plain. Continental rifting created an ocean trough and the plain became the Nama sea. Now it is hard to imagine this area was a sea when you look out of this dry hot desolate area. It took an estimated 100 million years to completely fill the Nama sea with sediment. Over that period heat and pressure transformed the sediments into hard metamorphic rock called the Nama Group comprised mostly of quartzite .

“By the act of observation we have selected a ‘real’ history out of the many realities, and once someone has seen a tree in our world it stays there even when nobody is looking at it.“~ John R. Gribbin

The Fish River Canyon was borne in a tectonic event. A huge block of the Earth’s crust subsided along deep fault lines forming a graben or trench. The graben was the easiest course for the ancient Fish river to follow. It was at this point that erosion took over in the creation of the canyon. The hard quartzite in the Nama group prevented the river from easily cutting into the depths, forcing it to cut sideways instead. Again hard to believe but glaciers flowed along the upper canyon about 300 million years ago carving the canyon down further. It is only once one gets a sense of this phenomenal development process over the last 2.5 billion years does the scenery and geology of this area become even more intriguing.

After an intriguing visit to the Fish River canyon we travelled back to the train waiting at Holoog for us. The next image was taken from the bus window of the sunset with a young Quiver tree in silhouette.

As with so much in nature, if one takes the time to metaphorically dig a little below the surface of what you see, does what you see takes on a whole new meaning. There is always something to see. If it is not animals, it may be birds or reptiles. It maybe unusual flora such as the Quiver trees or vast geological features, such as the Fish River Canyon, which were formed over hundreds of millions of years. Each element has a fascinating story to tell.

“The restlessness and the longing, like the longing that is in the whistle of a faraway train. Except that the longing isn’t really in the whistle—it is in you.” ~ Meindert DeJong

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun, Mike

In May this year Helen and I were fortunate enough to travel from Walvis Bay in Namibia to Pretoria in South Africa by Rovos Rail. The train journey took us from Walvis Bay up to Tsumeb and down to Windhoek then onto Keetmanshoop all in Namibia then on through South Africa to Pretoria. Along the way there were several short tours to interesting places such as Etosha National Park, Sossusvlei, the Quiver Tree Forest in Keetmanshoop and the Fish River Canyon in Namibia and the ‘Big Hole” at Kimberley in South Africa.

“The spirit of man is nomad, his blood bedouin, and love is the aboriginal tracker on the faded desert spoor of his lost self; and so I came to live my life not by conscious plan or prearranged design but as someone following the flight of a bird.” ~ Laurens van der Post

The next sequence of images was taken on our trip to Sossusvlei. The Rovos Rail train stopped at Windhoek station. From there we were taken to Eros private airport in Windhoek to fly by Cessna 210 light aircraft to Sossusvlei.

The flight took around a hour and we flew over stark but fascinating scenery. After we arrived at Geluk airstrip we were taken to Sossusvlei Lodge where we spent the next 24 hours. The next image is from our unit looking out towards the Naukluft mountains.

The Naukluft is proper desert environment and was proclaimed as a protected area in 1979. The temperatures are hot during the day and cool at night. It is extremely dry.

“Desert sunsets when the sun and earth always seem larger, wilder, brighter, more demanding and more silent. Somehow more certain.”~ Victoria Erickson

We took a game drive into the desert on the first afternoon. The colours after the sun has set were sublime and got more saturated for about 20 minutes to half an hour after sunset.

Our Rovos group were “up with the sparrows” and after a cup of coffee and a rusk we got on our game vehicles which were going to take us into the park.

Sossusvlei Lodge is located at the Sesriem entrance gate to the Namib Naukluft Park. It was late autumn in Namibia in May so the sunrise was only around 7h15 which is when the Park gate opened. I was shocked to see about a half kilometre long queue of cars, bakkies ( pickups) and game vehicles lined up waiting to get in the park at 7h00.

The desert may offer stark scenery but it also offers some spectacular colouring in early morning and evenings. Having got through the entrance gate this was the scenery on the drive into the park.

“The desert, when the sun comes up. I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped and the Earth began.” ~ Tom Hanks

We saw almost no game on the way to Deadvlei with the exception of one lone Gemsbok.

Dune 45 is one of the highest on the way to Sossusvlei and is so named because it is 45 kilometres from the Sesriem gate. The word Sesriem is Afrikaans word for six Gemsbok hide strips. The settlers in the area had to join six animal hide strips to form a rope long enough for a bucket to reach the water in the canyon floor.

The Namib Naukluft Park is huge covering around 50,000 square kilometres. It is roughly 500 kilometres long and 150 kilometres wide. Only a small proportion is accessible by visitors.

Camelthorn trees are dotted around the desert. They usually grow along an underground water system. These trees have an extensive tap root system which is known to reach down as far as 60 metres to find water. These trees have adapted to cope with the extremely hot dry days and bitterly cold nights in winter.

“What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.” ~ Edward Abbey

The only moisture in the atmosphere in this area of the park is blown in from the sea almost 120 kilometres west of Sossusvlei.

The Namib is considered the oldest desert in the world and has been around for about 55 million years. For most of that time it has been extremely dry, with most of the moisture that keeps flora and fauna alive coming from fog.

“The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.” ~ Jon Krakauer

The red colour of the dunes comes from minute flecks of rust coloured iron oxide mixed in with the silica of the sand.

We eventually reached out destination which was Deadvlei. This is a unique pan in this desert. Its floor is composed of white-greyish clay, its walls are the moving red dunes and this scene is punctuated by its iconic dead Camelthorn tree trunks.

The pan was formed by the seasonal flooding of the Tsauchab River. This provided enough water for Camelthorn trees to grow. However, the climate changed and the sand dunes progressively encroached on the pan and eventually blocked the Tsauchab river from flowing into the pan.

Our guide told us that Deadvlei had not had any rain since 2011. These shallow gullies in the pan floor show the remains of where water used to flow in the pan before the river was blocked off by the moving dunes and the latest period of no rain. In the background is the sand dune called “big daddy” claimed to be the largest in the world. It is interesting how the dunes reflect a different colour of rust-red to ochre and almost orange depending on the direction of the light.

“In the empire of desert, water is the king and shadow is the queen.” ~ Mehmet Murat ildan

The dead Camelthorn trees are estimated to be 900 years old. Under normal circumstances these trees would have decomposed but the exceptionally dry climate has desiccated them.

Deadvlei is a popular tourist site so trying to get images without people in them takes a degree of patience.

After about an hour wandering around Deadvlei the wind started to blow. While this is a dangerous environment for cameras ( fine sand in the working parts) but it also provides some interesting images.

Playing around with the exposure can create some interesting other-worldly looking images.

Deadvlei offers many wonderful photographic opportunities given the contrast between the dark-shaded tree trunks, bleached-white pans, and the red dunes which seem to polarise the blue sky making its colour deeper and more saturated.

“Listen to the silence. It has much to say.” ~ Rumi

Deadvlei is at least a one kilometre walk through thick sand from the parking area. It can get very hot when the wind is not blowing so you need to take water with you. The wind can blow quite hard which will sand blast you and your photographic kit so you need to take protective measures.

After spending a couple of hours at Deadvlei it was time to head back to camp. The wind was blowing and lifting the fine red sand into the air changing the look and feel of the dunes.

At around lunchtime of that day we climbed back onto our Cessna 210 to fly back to Windhoek. The next three images were taken out of the Cessna’s side window.

A dry sand river bed snaking through the desert. Water must have flowed down this sandy bed in the recent past as there were trees on the banks especially at the bends.

From up on high – interesting shapes and colours.

This soujorn to Sossusvlei was just one of four such excursions along our Rovos rail trip from Walvis Bay on the Namibia coast to Pretoria in South Africa. The trip took nine days. The Classic and Edwardian trains travel with beautiful pre-1940 dining cars. It was a romantic journey enabled us to relive the old days of luxury rail travel with five star service. Excellent cusine was served in the charming Victorian atmosphere of the dining cars and complemented by a selection of fine South African wines.

“Travel is more than seeing something new, it is also about leaving something behind, something that is old. Whether that be your past, your misconceptions, your comfort level or your anxieties. The next time you head down a new path, realise that there is no better time to be the new you” ~ Charles Kosman

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun, Mike

March is late summer on the Highveld in South Africa. We visited Marievale, an important bird sanctuary in Gauteng, in March to do some birding and for me to practice my bird photography. Marievale is well known to birders and bird photographers alike.

What makes this area unique is that it is a protected wetland. It is a Ramsar site which is a wetland designated to be of international importance, especially as a waterfowl habitat, under the Ramsar Convention.

What is interesting about this area is that it is a wetland amongst old gold mines. There are mine dumps in the background and although most of the mining activity has now stopped, the water is still polluted by the mining activities of yesteryear. The water pollution does not seem to have unduly affected the wetland vegetation or the birdlife.

“It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.” ~ Aristotle

Marievale is just outside Nigel in Gauteng and about 45 minutes drive from Johannesburg. The idea is to get there by sunrise as the bird activity seems to be best for the first few hours after sunrise.

“In that dawn chorus one hears the throb of life itself.” ~ Rachel Carson

Marievale is known for its waterfowl, but all the grasslands around it provide a wonderful habitat for herons and seedeaters.

Cape Shovelers can be found, but not always seen at Marievale. They are dabbling ducks, meaning they swim in shallow water and feed by tipping headfirst into the water to graze on aquatic plants on the bed of the waterway. They also eat lavae and insects when available. This duck is cryptically brown coloured and has a characteristic large spatulate bill and yellow eyes and legs.

You are not likely to go to a wetland or open grassland and not find a lapwing. On this particular trip to Marievale we saw an plethora of blacksmith lapwings. Not just the old pair but hundreds. Lapwings play an important role as alarm systems for other birds and animals. Adult blacksmith lapwings have unmistakable black grey and white markings. You can hear them from afar.

The one thing you can be sure of at Marievale is that you will see a base of familiar wetland birds but there will always be a few interesting characters which pop out of the reeds. One such surprise was this lone juvenile common moorhen.

One of the aspects about bird photography I have found is that you can spend hours trying to get a image of a species of bird that is skittish and always moving around. Then all of a sudden one specimen just stops and provides the perfect photographic opportunity. This juvenile common moorhen knew we there, it could see us, but was not phased by our presence at all. these birds are normally very skittish.

This was a juvenile blacksmith lapwing, one of the hundreds we saw that day. This youngster was resting. Lapwings like storks and herons sit with their legs bent forward from the knee.

I have been to Marievale many times over the past ten years and this was the first time I had seen a South African Shelduck. It looks like a small goose and sounds like a goose. They have very distinctive markings with ruddy colored body feathers and wings strikingly marked with black, white and green. The male has a grey head, and the female has a white face and black crown, nape and neck sides. The only other times I have seen this shelduck has been in the Kalagadigadi and Etosha.

There are numerous black headed herons at Marievale. They occupy the grasslands adjacent to the open water in the marshy areas. These birds are supreme predators capable of eating anything from a frog to a fish, rat, rabbit or terrapin. This black-headed heron had its neck retracted during flight for longitudinal stability.

In March it is still summer in Marievale and this was a red-shouldered or fan-tailed widowbird. It looks like a long tailed widowbird without the long tail. The red-shouldered widowbird does not grow a long tail and it has a pure orange-red shoulder with no white border to its red shoulder. This widowbird prefers swampy areas so Marievale was ideal.

One of the most common plovers in Marievale is the three-ringed plover. This is a very small bird with the characteristics three rings on its collar. It also has distinctive red eye ring.

All plovers and lapwings are in the same family and are all considered wading birds. There are eight South African ‘lapwings’ which are easily identified by their larger size, bold colouring, active habits, and very loud calls. They are often found in grasslands away from water. There are ten Plovers in southern Africa and all are small waders which are found along the edge of water.

The southern red bishop looks like a jewel in the golden grass waving in the breeze. The southern red bishop has a red crown, neck, back, rump and a black belly, chest and face. The southern red bishop is not to be mistaken for a fire-crowned bishop which also has both a red crown but it has a red breast band. The male of this species is hyperactive during breeding season trying to solicit females. As one passes by or comes close he puffs his chest out and fluffs up his back feathers

Marievale is a wetland in amongst disused mine dumps from the surrounding gold mines.

This Levaillant’s Cisticola posed beautifully for a few seconds on the end of a dead reed stem. This little cisticola has a ruddy coloured cap and buff coloured breast and heavily streaked back feathers.

This is one of my favourites, a golden crowned bishop. This male is, like the red bishop, hyperactive when females are anywhere near in breeding season. It flies around like a little golden bumble bee.

Don’t confuse a golden-crowned bishop with a yellow bishop. The latter has an all black head.

“I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

A red-billed teal flying over some open water with reeds in the background.

A male golden crowned bishop in full breeding plumage. He was perched at the top of a dead reed, looking out for passing females.

A yellow billed duck. They are usually seen in pairs. These are also dabbling ducks. It is much bigger than a teal and more the size of a mallard duck.

It has taken me ages to get some decent images of a long-tailed widowbird displaying in flight. On this particular occasion the light was behind me and the widowbird must have been about 30 metres away and its was around 8h00 in the morning

The long-tailed widowbird puts on a spectacular plumage display in flight. The display consists of a slow emphasised wing flaps with its tail between its legs. Its tail comprises around eight or nine long luxuriant black feathers which it fans out. This widowbird has broad black wings with red shoulders underlined by a white stripe.

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Widowbirds are so called because they are all dressed in black.

These widowbirds are often found communally with bishops and weavers. They are all seedeaters.

The breeding male regularly performs slow display flights low over his territory. The flight displays are aimed at attracting females. Each display comprises slow and erratic wing flapping, while extending and pushing down its long tail feathers between its legs.

The luxurious black tail feathers of a male long-tailed widowbird in breeding plumage must be three times longer than the body of the bird.

“At the heart of art is learning to see.”~ Seth Godin

A long tailed widow bird with a degree of backlighting to illuminate its wing and tail feathers.

A reed cormorant drying itself on a dead reed. Once you look closely they have very attractive colouring on their faces and backs.

A southern red bishop in breeding plumage perched near the top of a dead reed stem on the look out for female and ready to chase away other males in an instant.

We always see a black headed heron on the narrow track from the Duiker hide down to the old Marsh owl hide. I am always impressed by these voracious predators. Herons are carnivorous and the black headed heron seems to be capable of devouring the most surprising mammals, birds and reptiles. It clearly had swallowed something large. Herons just swallow their catch down their flexible esophagus’s and into their loose and stretchable stomachs. They do not have a crop like most birds.

An adult African Purple Swamphen. This bird is part of the rail family. It is a skulker. It is found in swamps and reedbeds. This swamphen has especially large feet which helps it to spread its weight across the reeds making its movement easier. It is also very dexterous with those feet holding stems of water-based plants while stripping the outer layers to feed on the soft inner pith.

The African Purple Gallinule has a new name the African Purple Swamphen. It is a beautifully coloured bird with blue and purple feathers on this head, neck and body. Its back and the top of its wing feathers are an olive green. It has distinctive red bill and frontal shield and pink legs with exceptionally large feet with long toes.

This is a skittish waterfowl and not often seen clearly but for some unknown reason this adult wandered around in the open in front of us for about half an hour. The African Purple Swamphen has white feathers under its tail which it flashes regularly by flicking its tail up.

Wetlands play a vital role in our hydrological systems. It was only in Dr Steve Boyes video “Into the Okavango” that I begun to realise how important these wetlands are in controlling the flow, for storing water like a sponge and clean up the water flowing through them. These wetland areas also provide a vital sanctuary and food for a diverse range of waterfowl, seed-eating birds and numerous insects, reptiles and small mammals.

“For many of us, water simply flows from a faucet, and we think little about it beyond this point of contact. We have lost a sense of respect for the wild river, for the complex workings of a wetland, for the intricate web of life that water supports.” ~ Sandra Postel

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness, and let it be.

Have fun, Mike