Rumble … cra-a-a-ck! Thunder boomed, drowning out the hum of the aircon in our chalet one hot afternoon at Twee Rivieren in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Then a sizzle of lightning. At the beginning of March the park was still bone dry, the rains already late. Would this electric storm bring the end of the dry spell?
The sky had gone dark and raindrops were starting to fall in great big fat splodges. Lightning wasn’t far behind so we leapt into the car (it’s a Faraday cage, right?) and hustled out to enjoy the storm with nothing but dunes and camelthorn trees to obstruct our view.
No, this is not a black-and-white photo!
That morning, the wind had come up while we were at Kij Kij waterhole, whipping sand across the parched Nossob riverbed, tossing it into the faces of a party of ten jackals who were drinking there, and across the backs of grumpy gemsbok (oryx) bickering about their right of way.
Kgalagadi dust storm
Kgalagadi lion trying to put on a brave face in a dust storm
By late afternoon the wind was full of so much bluster that it whisked sand into the air and obscured almost everything near Samevloeing waterhole, which lies in a dusty part of the riverbed. A Cape fox we’d seen at the entrance to its burrow earlier was nowhere in sight, tucked comfortably away from the vagaries of the weather.
Springbok were no longer huddling from the heat in the long line of shadow cast by camelthorns; with the sky clouded over and grey-black, there was plenty of shade everywhere. But still they clustered in large groups rather than spreading out, as if to protect themselves from the rain.
Springbok were no longer huddling from the heat in the long line of shadow cast by camelthorns; with the sky clouded over and grey-black, there was plenty of shade everywhere. But still they clustered in large groups rather than spreading out, as if to protect themselves from the rain.
Twee Rivieren camp, Kgalagadi, washed clean by the storm
Rain fell, but not much. It was enough to settle the dust and cool the air, but not enough to turn the scorched veld green in a few days' time. Soon patches of sunlight began to peep through the dark clouds and the Kgalagadi treated us to not one rainbow but two.
You could explain a rainbow by nattering on about refraction, dispersion and internal reflection, but that wouldn’t detract from its otherworldly beauty. And the double rainbow was even more special – a second arc outside the main arc (yes, light reflecting twice inside water droplets, yada yada) but with the colours reversed, back to back red, fading to violet on the far edges. It made me feel like a child again, a time when rainbows seemed so full of fairy-like promise, of magic and endless possibility.
You could explain a rainbow by nattering on about refraction, dispersion and internal reflection, but that wouldn’t detract from its otherworldly beauty. And the double rainbow was even more special – a second arc outside the main arc (yes, light reflecting twice inside water droplets, yada yada) but with the colours reversed, back to back red, fading to violet on the far edges. It made me feel like a child again, a time when rainbows seemed so full of fairy-like promise, of magic and endless possibility.
Double rainbow, Twee Rivieren camp, Kgalagadi
That evening a burnt-orange full moon sailed up from the dark horizon and lightning lit up the sky, sometimes vertically to earth, sometimes horizontally, travelling from cloud to cloud, skimming the tree tops for hundreds of metres before running out of power.
The electricity in the air seemed to energise us – or maybe it was just because the smattering of rain cooled things down to an invigorating 26 degrees.
Either way, we weren’t complaining; the storm had been far too exciting for that.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za.
The electricity in the air seemed to energise us – or maybe it was just because the smattering of rain cooled things down to an invigorating 26 degrees.
Either way, we weren’t complaining; the storm had been far too exciting for that.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za.
