Cartwheels over Lesotho, Part 8 – Sleeping under the Southern Cross

I must apologize to those of you depending on the forthcoming installments of this story to get your, err, daily dose of coffee and relaxation. A hectic work schedule has been keeping me up at night and dozing during the day when I should be writing.

I will make this short and publish the following pictures without the thousand words they’re worth, and leave the rest to your imagination.

Our trip neared an end. We’d left the Mountain Zebra National Park and headed south, eventually reaching the coast and settling down for a camping night at the Tsitsikamma National Park, where we got reacquainted with civilization and tour buses.

We slept surrounded by tents and caravans, but with our nylon shutters facing nothing but ocean mist and under an immense canopy of magnificent southern stars. I walked around the campground at night and shot in the darkness, encouraged by a rising moon and the faint halo of distant tungsten lights. On long exposures, though, these registered like major spotlights.

The following day, we headed to George for a last sleep-over, ate Italian out with Bevan, enjoyed his hospitality ’till mid morning and then got back behind the wheel and rallied Cape Town. That final leg concluded our 2010 Lesotho road trip. We had driven some 4000 kilometers on Southern African roads with more dust to account for than dirt, and more height than heat.

Our cartwheels had been automobile-launched as much as emotional. We’d driven up and sunk in. We’d climbed back up and free-wheeled down. We’d bounced and coughed and laughed and worried. We’d sweated and shivered. We’d explored and learned and been humbled by our own ignorance and wealth. We’d done our best to keep our eyes open, our minds awake and our hearts, giving. At that, we’d failed, sometimes.

But we had, first and last and always, been there and done that. And always, we would take that back home with us, to eventually share it with you.

The world is infinitely precious and beautiful and diverse and shocking and stunning.  I can’t pretend to understand it all. But I sure love it and I think you will, too. Don’t just click on these images for a slideshow. Click on the button that says, on another page, somewhere, buy this ticket. Go. To a new place or an old one. No matter how near or far. Sometimes the most fantastic journey takes place in one’s own backyard.

It’s not the distance that matters, it’s the inner eye. Mine always amazes me, once it has shaken loose days and weeks and months and years of laziness. It actually sees lots of cool things. If only I could show them to you…

The end.