Namaqualand Spring Flowers

Where to Go..... When to Go...... Where to Stay...

Where is Namaqualand?

Namaqualand is situated in the north-western corner of South Africa, just south of Namibia.

Namaqualand Spring Flowers

Namaqualand comes alive during spring (August), and carpets of bright orange, yellow, pink and white flowers make their appearance. This area has one of the richest plant heritages in the world with over 4000 species. The rest of the year, the region is desert like, with endless wide open spaces – an arid neverending expanse, with vast blues skies overhead.

How to See the Flowers

It's as simple as taking a few days (say 4 days minimum for an enjoyable time). One day is spent driving up there, one day driving back. This gives you two days to drive around and explore. There is no fixed "route" per se. Watch the newspapers and the internet for reports of where the flowers are best on any particular year. It's always more or less around the area marked on the map on the right. Book some accommodation in advance (particularly if you're interested in pet friendly accommodation). And then just go for it. Most roads are either tar or dirt (fine in a sedan). Plan your route and that's all it takes.

Namaqualand Flower Report

There are often impressive displays of flowers around:

• Citrusdal & Clanwilliam: Arum Lilies, Daisies, Protea
• Lutsville: White Daisies
• VanRhynsdorp Pass: Purple, Pink and Yellow Flowers
• Garies, Hondeklip Baai: Reported good.
• Kamieskroon & Skilpad National Park are apparently spectacular.

Why is the Namaqualand flora unique?

The Namaqualand has a very low, sporadic winter rainfall, and incredibly dry summers. This means that the plants have to adapt in order to survive moist winters followed by dry summers. In winter and spring, there are many perrenials and annuals but in summer all the plant life vanishes.

The annuals avoid the dry summer by germinating, flowering and serring seed during the winter and spring months. They survive the summers as seeds.

Other plants survive as bulbs, corms or tubers.

Another reason the Namaqualand plants are different is that they produce vast amounts of seed because many of their seeds do not survive the harsh summer months.

Our 2008 Spring Flower Trip

In August 2008 we took a trip to Namaqualand to see the wild spring flowers. Namaqualand comes alive during spring, and carpets of bright orange, yellow, pink and white flowers make their appearance. This area has one of the richest plant heritages in the world with over 4000 species. The rest of the year, the region is desert like, with endless wide open spaces – an arid neverending expanse, with vast blues skies overhead.

The trip took us to Gifberg Holiday Farm near Van Rhynsdorp, then northwards to the areas around Kamieskroon. During the day we took a visit to he Skilpad National Park.One evening we drove easat of Kamieskroon to a dry, arid area populated with kokerboom trees (quiver trees). It felt like we were stepping back a century in time.

We started our trip, leaving Cape Town and going north up the N7, driving up the Piekenierskloof Pass over into the Citrusdal Valley. The following picture was taken looking back towards Piketberg.

Driving further, we took the back roads to Clanwilliam and picnicked on the bank of the Clanwilliam dam for lunch. No official sitings of Namaqualand spring flowers just yet. The fun part was photographing the baboons on a rocky outcrop that we drove past.

We stayed at Gifberg Holiday Farm for two nights. This is presumably in the Nothern most part of the Cederberg. The terrain and scenery is very “Cederberg-like” whether or not it officially falls into the defined Cederberg area.

My dogs had a wonderful time! Gifberg is officially not pet-friendly, but my family know the owners, and have been coming here for years, so they’ve made an exception for our dogs.

I also took the opportunity to practise photographing birds. Difficuly with the useless lens I have.

After Gifberg, we moved north to Kamieskroon area, where we found carpets of spectacular Namaqualand spring flowers.

We stayed on a farm, with the obligatory farm dam, ducks, goats and bits and pieces of abandoned farm equipment.

One evening, we took a drive in an easterly direction, away from the spring flower regions near Kamieskroon, and went in search of the Kokerboom forests (quiver tree forests). We found countryside that was literally in the back of the beyond. It seemed like modern life has yet reach these areas. It was as dramatic in it’s own right as the Namaqualand spring flowers.

We drove along this road for about half an hour, and descended over the neck shown above into a valley on the other side, that was like a world from a previous century (except of course for the telephone poles along the road).

We literally arrived in a desert, with very few flowers. The landscape changed to a harsh arid moonscape dotted with quiver trees (kokerboom) and low semi-desert bushes and scrub.

The kokerboom or quiver tree is an aloe. Like other succulents, it has evolved to be able to survive in arid regions with no or little rain. The San people who lived in this region used to use the quiver tree to make the quivers for their arrows, which is how the plant derived its name.

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