We're now very comfy in our very pleasant Guest House for the night, having had a lovely dinner and spent the evening chatting with our host. We've not too far to go tomorrow - about half today's distance, but it's due to hit 40 degrees as we head down the escarpment so we'll have to watch ourselves carefully. We may make some detours to the direct route too

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And just before one of the towns today, a dust devil, whirled across the road. We saw dozens of these during the day.

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More subtle changes to the landscape, this one leading to what I would sometimes call my Colours of the Day pic

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The area pays a little homage to Table Mountain several hundred kilometres and no geological similarity south

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More strange geology, and more subtle changes to notice

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Westward, ever westward, the road goes straight on.
But in about a 250km stretch we counted at least 7 memorials, some formal, some attached to fences or stuck into the ground, showing where people have been killed along the road. This is not the place to lose concentration. The winds can buffet the car as well, and on a couple of occasions even pushed our little hire car closer to the white line than was safe if another car was coming

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But this is the land of big one spaces and big skies. In some ways, it can be seen as monotonous, but it has a stunning beauty and, if one seeks to be observant, numerous subtle changes

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This is typical view of a farmstead that one sees from time to time. Some water has been found, and windpumps, typically, now solar-powered pumps, with the addition of generations of struggle, allow a little greenness to appear

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Even after our first stop after 130km, we had another 120km+ until the next settlement

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We missed taking a snap to the turn-off to Sutherland, but the one here is where South Africa's optical telescope observatories are located. Instead,, we entered Namaqualand proper, though we did find ourselves in the Highlands, if not in our Highlands. We're about at the height of Ben Nevis now and have been for the last few days. Tomorrow, we go down the escarpment that sits over the whole of South Africa. We may notice this in increased temperatures.
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There is a tradition in this area of building corbelled roofs on houses. Quite a few can be seen from the road and, we believe, some can be visited. Some. of covered in turf, could be mini Maes Howes. I'd guess these houses would be cooler in summer, but we've not been able to find out where the tradition came from or who the builders were

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The first leg of the journey was over 130km, during which time no settlements larger than the occasional farm would be seen. But the landscape changes subtly in these long journeys. At several points. these weird rock formations, not out of place in a sci-fi movie, appeared dotted around the place. The rocks are huge, yet seem to have been carefully placed there
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Right, today's instalment of The Last Homely House Travels.
We left our overnight location quite early, not bothering with breakfast. I mentioned earlier how challenging being in such an impoverished place was, so we were glad to get on the road.
Within a few minutes, we saw one of the first of the Square Kilometre Array radio telescopes that are being built in this wide open area. Zooming in, the heat haze made it look other-worldly
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Courtesy of the G people, and @Wizardofosmium being bored enough to look this up on StreetView, here's one of those speared stormtroopers
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We weren't able to stop and take a snap, but we started passing weird spears attached to fence posts, each skewering a Star Wars stormtrooper white helmet. It was puzzing until we came to the sign for a farm stall selling South African sausage. The sign read
StarWors

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Well of course it's a enormous post box outside a cafe in an obscure little town. What did you expect?
The people of Calvinia wish you to know that, to the best of their knowledge, this is the biggest post box in the world, if not this quadrant of the galaxy.
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That was a challenging stay, last night on our road trip. The area we are in is very rural - in the last 135km there were no settlements at all.
There is no employment, so the deprivation is extreme. One therefore gets accosted by the desperate, and it is difficult to gauge how safe it is. And from our vantage of relative privilege it is difficult to know how to respond.
At this, our first stop on today's leg, we see we can leave a contribution to the local welfare centre.
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Today the good news on our travels is that we found a shop that stocks car tyres soles veldskoen.
The bad news is that they didn't have them in my size.
The search continues....
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At dinner, we got chatting to a civil engineer (we did our best to be civil too) who is working on the Square Kilometre Array, which is being built not far from tonight's stop on our road trip.
https://www.sarao.ac.za/about/the-project/
Sadly but understandably, the SKA will not be publicly accessible except for once a year. A pity, as this impoverished area really needs some invigorating.
@elizabethtasker
@astroroyalscot.bsky.social
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I really do need to do a considered thread on some of the issues we, now as outsiders here, have observed. Some are hangups on our part, for sure, some aspects are much better than we expected and some frustratingly worse.
I've started some notes, as it's important to consider these aspects while we're here, but may only post about it later. I'll see.
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