West Coast National Park

One of the things I'm so sad that I didn't get to do is travel to Namaqualand to see the spring flowers. Namaqualand is mostly desert, but when the spring rains come, there are thick, multi-colored blankets of flowers. Go to Google images and search for namaqualand daisies, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Still, there are pretty flowers in other places not quite so far away, and we heard (while we were in Cape Town) that the flowers just up the west coast were still pretty. So, on the 2nd day we were down in the Cape, we drove about an hour and a half to the West Coast National Park near Langebaan.

The flowers are in a section called the Postberg Reserve. As we were driving that way, we saw a sign pointing to an Atlantic Ocean viewpoint. We turned left, drove a couple hundred yards, parked, got out of the car and said, "Oh, look. Whales."

Yep, it's whale season down here in South Africa, and we spent quite awhile watching the whales through our binoculars. (Both Debbie and Lola are birders and so had brought theirs, and I bought a good pair here for game viewing.) We believe they were Southern Right Whales, although a nearby sign said they could have been humpbacks.

We drove on into the Postberg and onto a loop road. There were lots of other flower watchers, too, but it wasn't too terribly crowded. We stopped at another place where there was a beautiful little beach and spent awhile there in the sand, sticking toes in the surf, gathering seashells, and taking more photos.

It wasn't quite as spectacular as Namaqualand, but still a very nice outing.

Mist over the Atlantic Ocean.

Field of yellow flowers.



Debbie watches whales.


Lola photographs flowers.