De Aar and the Great Karoo Region
The small town of De Aar, the 'vein', takes its name from an underground watercourse. Among the town's prominent citizens was authoress Olive Schreiner, who lived here from 1907 to 1913.
De Aar is a major railway junction and the lines from the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and Namibia meet here. The crack trains, such as the Blue Train, Trans Karoo and the Orange Express used to stop here to change crews. With 110 kilometres of railway tracks, the railway junction of De Aar is the second largest junction in South Africa. It is the switching point for the railway systems to Namibia and the northern, southern and eastern Cape lines.
Here, in the spring, every August/September, the veldt is covered from horizon to horizon with wild flowers, which bloom for only three weeks, spread their seed and die. Tourists come from all over the world to this wild part of the country to see this floral wonder.
This vast dry land is geographically part of the Kalahari semi-desert, which extends from the Karoo dry lands of the Cape to northern Botswana and eastern Namibia. The occasional oasis, the Orange River and the Okavango Swamps, punctuates the dryness.
Covering the south-western reaches of South Africa's interior plateau is the Great Karoo, a high (1,220ms) and dry region that takes its name from a Khoi word meaning ' land of great thirst '.
The vast herds of Springbok of 150 years ago have been replaced by sheep, one of the few animals able to survive on the low-lying scrub that is the common vegetation of the Karoo. Springbok Antidorcas Marsupialis once migrated across the Karoo in herds of up to 40,000, a sight viewed by David Livingstone. He wrote at the time: "It is probable that, notwithstanding the continual destruction by firearms, they will continue long to hold their place." How wrong he was. Today, it is rare to see a Springbok in the wild beyond the confines of a game farm or reserve.
David Livingstone, the first serious observer to walk across the African continent from Luanda in the west to the mouth of the mighty Zambezi on the eastern seabed, was the first explorer to note this phenomenon. He drew an interesting cross-section of African in his first book "Missionary Travels and Adventures in South-eastern Africa."
Sheep farming has become the main economic activity of the area, often on large farms of many thousand of acres. The dryness of the land is deceptive as water is relatively plentiful deep underground. To bring water to the surface farmers use windmills and the turning sails and stark outlines of these structures have become synonymous with the Karoo skyline.
Scientists use the name Karoo to describe the geological base for the interior plateau covering two-thirds of southern Africa.
Between 150 and 250 million years ago vast sediments were laid down in a series of three distinct layers. The Dwyka Series, a layer about 900 metres thick consisting of rocks encased in a matrix of mudstone and moraine and believed to be debris of a previous ice age.
After its deposition came a period of climatic change when much of the earth was covered in forests, thick swamps, huge lakes and densely vegetated wetlands. From this steamy world of mud, jungles and water the Ecca Series, a 3,000 metre thick layer of shale and sandstone, was formed. Locked into rocks of this series is a wealth of fossils ranging from small reptiles to huge tree stumps, some still upright.
Above this is the Beaufort Series, a layer of sedimentary deposition about 5,600 metres thick that created the face of the Karoo as we know it today.
Over time igneous material from the centre of the earth forced its way through vertical and horizontal cracks in the Karoo's sedimentary depositions, forming dolerite dykes (vertical) and dolerite sills (horizontal). As the soft sedimentary rocks weathered away, the harder or more resistant dolerite dykes and sills remained forming the flat topped or ' table ' mountains and bell-like buttes that characterise the Karoo.
De Aar is a major railway junction and the lines from the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and Namibia meet here. The crack trains, such as the Blue Train, Trans Karoo and the Orange Express used to stop here to change crews. With 110 kilometres of railway tracks, the railway junction of De Aar is the second largest junction in South Africa. It is the switching point for the railway systems to Namibia and the northern, southern and eastern Cape lines.
Here, in the spring, every August/September, the veldt is covered from horizon to horizon with wild flowers, which bloom for only three weeks, spread their seed and die. Tourists come from all over the world to this wild part of the country to see this floral wonder.
This vast dry land is geographically part of the Kalahari semi-desert, which extends from the Karoo dry lands of the Cape to northern Botswana and eastern Namibia. The occasional oasis, the Orange River and the Okavango Swamps, punctuates the dryness.
Covering the south-western reaches of South Africa's interior plateau is the Great Karoo, a high (1,220ms) and dry region that takes its name from a Khoi word meaning ' land of great thirst '.
The vast herds of Springbok of 150 years ago have been replaced by sheep, one of the few animals able to survive on the low-lying scrub that is the common vegetation of the Karoo. Springbok Antidorcas Marsupialis once migrated across the Karoo in herds of up to 40,000, a sight viewed by David Livingstone. He wrote at the time: "It is probable that, notwithstanding the continual destruction by firearms, they will continue long to hold their place." How wrong he was. Today, it is rare to see a Springbok in the wild beyond the confines of a game farm or reserve.
David Livingstone, the first serious observer to walk across the African continent from Luanda in the west to the mouth of the mighty Zambezi on the eastern seabed, was the first explorer to note this phenomenon. He drew an interesting cross-section of African in his first book "Missionary Travels and Adventures in South-eastern Africa."
Sheep farming has become the main economic activity of the area, often on large farms of many thousand of acres. The dryness of the land is deceptive as water is relatively plentiful deep underground. To bring water to the surface farmers use windmills and the turning sails and stark outlines of these structures have become synonymous with the Karoo skyline.
Scientists use the name Karoo to describe the geological base for the interior plateau covering two-thirds of southern Africa.
Between 150 and 250 million years ago vast sediments were laid down in a series of three distinct layers. The Dwyka Series, a layer about 900 metres thick consisting of rocks encased in a matrix of mudstone and moraine and believed to be debris of a previous ice age.
After its deposition came a period of climatic change when much of the earth was covered in forests, thick swamps, huge lakes and densely vegetated wetlands. From this steamy world of mud, jungles and water the Ecca Series, a 3,000 metre thick layer of shale and sandstone, was formed. Locked into rocks of this series is a wealth of fossils ranging from small reptiles to huge tree stumps, some still upright.
Above this is the Beaufort Series, a layer of sedimentary deposition about 5,600 metres thick that created the face of the Karoo as we know it today.
Over time igneous material from the centre of the earth forced its way through vertical and horizontal cracks in the Karoo's sedimentary depositions, forming dolerite dykes (vertical) and dolerite sills (horizontal). As the soft sedimentary rocks weathered away, the harder or more resistant dolerite dykes and sills remained forming the flat topped or ' table ' mountains and bell-like buttes that characterise the Karoo.
Labels: Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam, Namibia Journey, Pretoria to Cape Town Journey
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