By Roxanne Reid
If you love the back roads and little dorpies of the dry South African heartland that is the Karoo, you have two choices. You can fill up with high-priced fuel and go exploring on four wheels, or you can put yourself in the hands of authors Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit and let them be your virtual guides. They’ve made it their mission to travel to every corner of the Karoo to meet people and document the way of life. Now, with the launch of their ebook store, it just got easier to enjoy virtual travels through the Karoo.
If you love the back roads and little dorpies of the dry South African heartland that is the Karoo, you have two choices. You can fill up with high-priced fuel and go exploring on four wheels, or you can put yourself in the hands of authors Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit and let them be your virtual guides. They’ve made it their mission to travel to every corner of the Karoo to meet people and document the way of life. Now, with the launch of their ebook store, it just got easier to enjoy virtual travels through the Karoo.
To fully appreciate the Karoo, Chris and Julie believe you need to develop your Karoo Eyes – to visually sift beauty out of apparent desolation. Their travel philosophy is to ‘go from face to face, not place to place’. And they do it so well, introducing you to wonderful, wacky characters and little-known facts about the Karoo, all in their attention grabbing, easy-to-read style.
‘As Karoo authors, we record, reflect and celebrate local life,’ they say. ‘Today you’ll find us interviewing a jackal hunter, tomorrow we’ll be at a food festival and sometime next week we might be puffing up a farmer’s hill to look at some San etchings.’
It’s no surprise, then, that their latest offering of five new ebooks is a delightful jumble of ‘faces, places, lifestyle and laughter all rolled up into word and photo essays that will show you the really inspiring bits of South Africa that seldom hit the headlines’.
‘As Karoo authors, we record, reflect and celebrate local life,’ they say. ‘Today you’ll find us interviewing a jackal hunter, tomorrow we’ll be at a food festival and sometime next week we might be puffing up a farmer’s hill to look at some San etchings.’
It’s no surprise, then, that their latest offering of five new ebooks is a delightful jumble of ‘faces, places, lifestyle and laughter all rolled up into word and photo essays that will show you the really inspiring bits of South Africa that seldom hit the headlines’.
Snappy copy and vibrant photos are the hallmark of the Karoo ebooks
In Karoo Keepsakes and Karoo Keepsakes II (also available in Afrikaans as Knapsak vol Karoo I and II) you’ll meet musicians, sculptors, collectors, healers, rogues, quilters and karretjie people. You’ll learn to appreciate creatures like Karoo sheep, meerkats, tortoises, giant earthworms, ostriches (which they describe as ‘Karoo sock-puppets’) and donkeys that are part of the family. One chap loved his big-eared donkeys so much, they tell us, that he’d play the fiddle for them in the evenings.
You’ll also delve into the charm of the land of flood and drought, wind pumps, leiwater furrows, quiver trees and prickly pears, of heritage roses, fossils, matjieshuise and the Nama Riel. And if you’re up for more fun, let the authors escort you to festivals like AfrikaBurn or the dusty madness of the Williston Winter Festival.
Each of their short, bite-sized glimpses of Karoo life is accompanied by vivid photos that evoke the character of the Karoo – the deeply wrinkled faces, the bright colours, the unusual photo angles that bring new life to an everyday subject.
You’ll also delve into the charm of the land of flood and drought, wind pumps, leiwater furrows, quiver trees and prickly pears, of heritage roses, fossils, matjieshuise and the Nama Riel. And if you’re up for more fun, let the authors escort you to festivals like AfrikaBurn or the dusty madness of the Williston Winter Festival.
Each of their short, bite-sized glimpses of Karoo life is accompanied by vivid photos that evoke the character of the Karoo – the deeply wrinkled faces, the bright colours, the unusual photo angles that bring new life to an everyday subject.
Whether it's donkeys, meerkats or buffalo, Chris and Julie's ebooks will make you look at Karoo creatures with new eyes
The ebook 101 Karoo Towns also reveals countless nuggets of intrigue. Did you know, for instance, there was once a shoot-out on the steps of the church in Aberdeen, or that Hanover’s church used to have lights powered by methane from sheep droppings? That Jagersfontein’s mines were the source of gangster Al Capone’s favourite diamonds or that Sir David Attenborough came to Nieuwoudtville to film parts of his documentary The Private Life of Plants?
If you enjoy reading about the quaint and the quirky, the weird and the wonderful of our Karoo heartland, you’ll love going along for the virtual ride with Chris and Julie.
The ebooks are in pdf format, best for reading on your tablet or computer. As a launch special, you can get the three ebooks – Karoo Keepsakes, Karoo Keepsakes II and 101 Karoo Towns – for the price of two; that’s three jam-packed Karoo ebooks for $30 instead of $45. Find the full details and shopping cart on their website.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
If you enjoy reading about the quaint and the quirky, the weird and the wonderful of our Karoo heartland, you’ll love going along for the virtual ride with Chris and Julie.
The ebooks are in pdf format, best for reading on your tablet or computer. As a launch special, you can get the three ebooks – Karoo Keepsakes, Karoo Keepsakes II and 101 Karoo Towns – for the price of two; that’s three jam-packed Karoo ebooks for $30 instead of $45. Find the full details and shopping cart on their website.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
