Vrystaatse Vlaktes – Featured Blog

I have come to love the wide open spaces of the Karoo Heartland in the Eastern Cape but just haven’t been able to get used to the, what we call in Afrikaans, Vrystaatse vlaktes.  Vrystaat is the Afrikaans name for the Free State, South Africa’s central province while vlaktes is an very descriptive Afrikaans work for wide open spaces stretching for miles.  The wide open spaces, or vlaktes, of the Free State is very different from that of the Karoo Heartland.  Driving along the roads of the central and southern Free State you often feel like you are in the middle of nowhere where nothing grows about knee high.  I’m not insulting the Free State, please don’t get me wrong.  I’m just saying that, like with wine, I just haven’t been able to get used to it.  I found the most beautiful Afrikaans poem called the Vrystaatse Vlaktes in die Somer just to make up for it in case somebody feels insulted.  

The picture was taken just off the N1 in the southern Free State about 50 kilometers north of the Gariep Dam. 

I haven’t participated in Skywatch Friday for a very long time and I think it’s time I start sharing our beautiful South African skies on a regular basis on it again.