Kompassberg and the High Plains

Last week we spent four days in the Karoo. As usual we were based at Ganora Farm, which is near Nieu-Bethesda, doing some mapping work and interviewing farmers who kindly gave us their rainfall records.  At this time of year the light can be spectacular, especially in the early evenings when there are summer storms passing by.  The air gets scrubbed clean by the rain and wind leaving a sparkling landscape.  It is also high, at around 1500 metres, which also adds to the translucent skies.  These pictures are mostly in black and white though the filter I used on my Pentax K-5 leaves red shades in the images.  That’s easy to see in one of the pictures.  The landscape is dominated by wide open spaces, clouds, and Kompassberg mountain which towers dramatically 1000 metres above you.