Augrabies Falls National Park (5-24)

Since my bus to Namibia didn’t leave until 7:30 Tuesday night, I hired Willie—and Carli— to take me to Augrabies Falls National Park, which is a couple hours west of Upington, for the day. Outside Upington, there are many vineyards. Wine is a big business in the area. We stopped at the top of a mountain to enjoy the overview of the area. After going through the mountains, the landscape changed from the vineyards to the desert

At the park, I was fascinated with the quiver trees. I’d read about them but hadn’t seen them. 

I especially enjoyed the fact that many were in bloom.

I also enjoyed the colorful geckos.

The waterfall is at the top of a deep canyon, and we could only view it from the top. It is especially famous for the huge quantity of water when the river floods, which was not when I was there. 

The walk to the falls goes over the surrounding stones for views of the whole falls and then to the top of the falls. 

Of course I enjoyed the rocks and the canyon as well as the falls. 

After lunch, we went on a game drive. When Willie suggested that, I wasn’t really enthused about another game drive, but I quickly realized that the drive was about the beautiful scenery as much as the animals. 

I loved the rocky terrain and mountains. 

One rock formation is called Moon Rock because of its half moon shape.

Animal highlights were vervet monkeys 

and baboons near the road. Willie was so determined to get a good photo of the male baboon that we stopped again on the way out. It was always fun when he was excited about the animals, too. We enjoyed watching the monkeys scampering around and eating. 

We also saw some zebras 

and a giraffe. It was a wonderful way to spend my last day in South Africa and the last day of my holiday.

Back in Upington, I had dinner. I had planned to have a light meal, but when I saw ostrich schnitzel on the menu, I had to have one last ostrich dinner. They let me have half vegetables and half onion rings instead of only one side, which was nice and half of each was plenty. 

And then I had to have a malva pudding, my final South African treat.

The bus was a sleeper bus, which means that the seats reclined 120^o. So I was able to sleep fairly well. After a couple hours, we crossed into Namibia. The driver took care of my passport stamping for me, which was nice of him. Then it was time to sleep.