05 Sep Namaqualand: A Guide To Flower Viewing In South Africa
We’ve just come back from a week on the road (our first proper trip since the COVID-19 travel bans, woohoo) and what a way to start our South African adventures! We can honestly say that taking a trip through the Western Cape and Northern Cape to see the Namaqualand flowers (and all the surrounds) has been a massive highlight for us. We hope you enjoy this post and get to see them for yourself soon too!
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VISITING NAMAQUALAND
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Namaqualand – deriving from the Khoi, “Nama kwa land” meaning “Nama Khoi people’s land”, is an arid region in Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over 1000 km (600 mi). It’s certainly not a small area, and depending on if you visit ‘Little Namaqualand’ in the south, or ‘Great Namaqualand’ above the Orange River, your experience will be different as well.
Our week-long road trip focused on ‘Little Namaqualand’ in the Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces of South Africa (since the borders between South Africa and Namibia were and are still closed due to COVID-19 regulations), so this guide will only share insight about that, but trust us, even if you only go where we went, you’ll feel very satisfied, with enough flower photos to fill up a few SD cards.
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WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT NAMAQUALAND
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It’s safe to say that visiting Namaqualand during the flower season is pretty high on most South Africans’ bucket lists. Seeing the flowers in this protected and raw landscape is one of those experiences that a lot of people say they’d love to do, but, sadly, don’t actually get around to doing. It’s a difficult time of year to travel for most people (since the flowers only bloom during a few weeks in August and September). It’s not a popular time for holiday makers in South Africa, and since the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing its last few winks of Summer during this time, most people don’t choose to travel south, but we’re here to try and convince you to plan your trip around these dates, because it is oh SO worth it…and since not many get to actually go, you’ll get to be one of the lucky few to experience this natural phenomena.
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WHEN TO GO
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As with any experience influenced by nature, this will depend on weather patterns and the changing seasons, but from the locals we’ve spoken to and research we did ahead of our trip, it’s safe to say that if you choose to travel between mid-August and mid-September, you should definitely be lucky to find fields of kaleidoscopic shades.
According to Cederberg Africa (and their very helpful post about the flower season), the further north you go, the earlier the flowers will pop.
“As a general rule, the wild flowers begin flowering first in the Northern Cape in Namaqualand in late July or early August. They then advance southwards through Nieuwoudtville and the Cederberg region, and then appear on the West Coast at the end of August.”
So depending on if you’re planning to explore the northern parts of South Africa, or more south (closer to Cape Town) this will affect your travel dates. For our trip, we traveled from 18-24 August 2020 and found pops of colour in Namaqualand National Park (up in the Northern Cape) right down to Nieuwoudtville and the Cederberg region.
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WHERE TO STAY
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We chose to base ourselves in Vanrhynsdorp, a quiet little town (with one of the best succulent nurseries we’ve ever been to…where we may have purchased ourselves a four-year-old Quiver Tree – but we’ll save that story for another day), so that we could take daily trips to the surrounding areas. It proved to be a good way to go, since we could venture west to see the flowers along the coast in Papendorp and Doring Bay, south to see the fields in Clanwilliam and the Cederberg Wilderness Area (which we fell in love with and will be visiting again soon), and north-east for stunning flower displays in Nieuwoudtville (which turned out to be our favourite location for flowers). Each trip took about an hour each way, which meant we had three very exciting (and very different) flower experiences.
After Vanrhynsdorp, we travelled up to stay in Hondeklip Bay (in the hope of having a base near the Namaqualand National Park) but sadly, due to the lack of paved roads in the Northern Cape (only the main highway is properly paved), trips took a lot longer, and even though Hondeklip Bay appeared to be close to the National Park on the map, it wasn’t as convenient as we’d hoped, and was on the opposite side of the main flower viewing area in the National Park (known as ‘Skilpad’). If we were to visit the Namaqualand National Park again, we’d probably stay in the park itself, or in nearby Kamieskroon (since it is the closest small town near the best National Park gate entrance).
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WHERE TO SEE THE FLOWERS
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Unlike seeing cherry blossoms in Japan and tulips in The Netherlands, finding flowers in Namaqualand is a little trickier, since they’re dispersed in different areas, and many fields are actually on private farm land. We made friends with Marne from Namakwa Toere during our stay in Vanrhynsdorp, and she was very helpful in guiding us to various spots around the area to see flowers (a couple of which we needed special access with her to view on private farms), but if you’re looking to self-drive Namaqualand without a guide or local’s assistance, we’d recommend heading up to Nieuwoudtville, as the small town has tons of little flower fields scattered throughout the town, in people’s gardens and outside the local ‘eetpleks’ (restaurants). It’s also home to the Hantam National Botanical Gardens which have many flowers on display.
There were many fields between Doring Bay and Vredendal along the dirt road R362, and then once you take the Graafwater – Lambert’s Bay – Vredendal road towards Vredendal, you’ll want to stop a few times to admire the vast colour splashes (which you won’t miss as you drive through).
Along the R27 going from Vredendal to Vanrhynsdorp, there were tons of patches of yellow, purple and orange flowers, blooming with the view of the Matzikamma Mountain Range in the background (a really beautiful sight).
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If heading up north towards the Namaqualand National Park (and you’re in a 4×4), from Garies you can take the dirt road to Hondeklip Bay for tons of purple fields with occasional patches of yellow, orange and white.
Needless to say, the Namaqualand National Park also has giant displays, although we only really spotted full fields near the eastern gate in the area known as ’Skilpad’ (and – if we’re being perfectly honest – with all the flowers we’d seen during our four days leading up to the park, once we’d gotten into the park we were a little underwhelmed, but can definitely recommend it if you won’t be doing any exploring of your own outside of the park). We probably would’ve enjoyed our time more in the park if we’d seen a little more wildlife (only spotted one Klipspringer) and we’d spent the night staying inside, so if you can, definitely try to.
We hope you enjoyed this post, and it assists in your quest for Namaqualand flowers. For up to date information about the flowers from locals and travelers alike, check out the ‘Namaqualand in Spring’ Facebook group and read our other post “5 Experiences To Have When Traveling To See Namaqualand Flowers” here.
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Recommended: 5 EXPERIENCES TO HAVE WHEN TRAVELING TO SEE NAMAQUALAND FLOWERS
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