Where the flowers are a bonus

You can't tell nature what to do, especially in Namaqualand. The flowers don't bloom according to a calendar on Microsoft Outlook. Rather slow down, drive a back road and appreciate the landscape and its people – even if the daisies are hiding.

- WILLEM VAN DER BERG

I't's August in Springbok. There's a coffee shop in town called Wildflower and it's packed with people on the hunt for daises. But their faces are grim. The flowers are late, they say.

Can we accuse Namaqualand - with her ancient knowledge of survival, her unending patience during droughts - of tardiness? Of dallying with germination? Of struggling to bloom?

Namaqualand deserves more respect than that! Everyone wants to see her colourful spring dress, but when she's in her overalls, doing the hard work, we look away.

I'm not here for the flowers; I want to go to the overlooked corners away from the N7, Garies, Kamieskroon and Namaqua National Park. Not because I don't like those places, but because I want to give attention to other places in the Kamiesberg, and the settlements and guest farms along the lesser-known R355 dirt road. If I see flowers, wonderful. They'll be a nice bonus.

As I drive the R355 to the farm Gamoep, the hills flatten out. The brown plains of Bushmanland wash up to the road from the east. A single gazania draws the eye from a distance. On the main routes, the flowers have to carpet a mountain before anyone notices them. But here, on the other side of the N7, I put in the effort to photograph these specks of yellow.

The farmyard at Gamoep is as quiet as the plains around it. I met Oom Jan Beukes here in 2016 and he told me it was much busier in the past when Gamoep also had a shop and a small garage.

“Aag wat, ek mis nou nie die winkel soe vrieslik nie,” oom Jan said from the sliver of shade under his hat. “I miss the people who came here, and their stories, but if you don’t like your own company in a place like this, you'll never survive.”