A little red for sprucing up

Look, there are some red Aloe hereroensis flowers bringing cheer to the Karoo landscape!

Drab to the uninitiated watching from an air-conditioned car at 120 km per hour? Yes! Less interesting than coastal, lush green vegetation or tall trees? Only if this land is avoided by personal choice, resulting in missing the point, or many points.

If exploration time isn’t prudently chosen in terms of weather conditions or time of day, heat, thirst and sweat may diminish the moment of discovery. And the victim gets branded as a mad dog or even a Brexiting type.

Those acquainted with this terrain include the blind with perfect eyesight who live here without noticing. Fortunately many others are instantly inspired by even the slight offerings from the apparently bleak northern Karoo.

Close inspection during a quiet stroll bring the surprises. Keep looking, the special something may be behind the next stone. It may be seen for the first time or recognised from before. Then it goes beyond generating interest as exultation and a story may follow. Some cant get enough of it, others avoid it like the plague. (Can we move on now?)

Mother Nature crafts spectacular life solutions for its manifold animal and plant offspring that make it in this arid land. It gets exciting if you think about it, boring until you do.