Blooming Magic in the West Coast National Park (2020-09-08)

Steadily we creep towards Spring once more, and as such, I eagerly await the next spring flowers bloom that takes over much of the West Coast and Namaqualand regions each and every year. The West Coast National Park is usually where we travel to get our fix of the endless vibrantly coloured carpets of daisies and the other wild flowers that litter the landscape for their brief moment in the sunshine, and indeed, with the treasured jewel of the privately owned Postberg Flower Reserve sitting within the park’s borders, this national park really does truly get well and truly overrun come each and every Spring season.

Our 2020 visit to this national park that covers an area of 36,259 hectares (bordering the icy Atlantic ocean and stretching from Yzerfontein in the south up to the Langebaan Lagoon in the north) was certainly a tad on the eventful side, primarily because for most of the trip the sky was overrun with thick grey mist and overcast skies, taking visibility down to almost zero at certain times. Thankfully though, every now and then it would break, and we’d get a glimpse of the colourful spectacle that we were there in the first place for.

Due to the conditions, there were far fewer animal sightings than normal, and to make matters even more interesting, we lost the second car in our caravan (the one with Chantelle’s folks and our kids in it), so that ended up being fun and games as well. Still, despite all of this, we were treated to large fields of blooming Gousblom, Magriet, Wild sorrel, and White Rain and Livingstone daisies, so in the end I suppose that we did end up getting exactly what we came for then.