Karoo

It is higher ground, but it also suffers from a lack of water, slower flowing larger rivers, and as you move north geology plays tricks on you.

To the west, well, there's a bloody great series of deserts marching from the Karoo in Macqueland to Kalahari into the Namib then into the Angolan Plateau.

Good luck using that route even these days.

It needs a Land Cruiser, spare tanks, spare tires, and don't forget the satellite phone.

So the South African Weather Service had issued an urgent yellow level four warning for this weekend that, you know, just passed and that we're currently in, where a powerful cut of low pressure system moved across the country.

You know, communities across the Eastern Cape, Karoo and Garden Route braced themselves for damaging interior winds, massive coastal waves and torrential rain that carried a high risk of localized flooding.

um listeners were urged to secure their properties and avoid traveling near low-lying bridges and i'm sure i showed you yesterday something that happened um which area was it um where the roof actually the wind actually made the entire roof come off of a certain building um which area was it i can't remember now

I can't remember.

Anna, today's fresh story is one I've been waiting years for somebody to pull off.

A radio telescope in the Karoo Desert has heard hydrogen, not from one galaxy, from billions of them at once, four to five billion light-years away, and it did it without any help from an optical telescope.

Which sounds modest until you understand that this particular signal is buried under a foreground about 10,000 times brighter than it is.

It's a technique people have been trying to make work for 15 years.

And the instrument is MeerKAT.

MeerKAT.

64 radio dishes standing in the Karoo in South Africa's Northern Cape.

One of the quietest patches of radio sky on Earth, which turns out to be the whole point.

I'm Spling.

This week, we talk about three South African films from the raw emotional crossfire of a coastal family gathering and the gritty psychological survival of the Karoo Desert to the sweet, vibrant spark of a secret boarding school romance in Homegrown Grit.

Bluntmane is a prickly, wistful, and deeply haunting film from Nico Schierper's, which turns a dysfunctional seaside getaway into an uncomfortably compelling domestic drama.

Anchored by Annamart van der Maver's multifaceted performance, a stellar ensemble navigate the difficult matriarch as the film immerses you in raw family politics, organic dialogue, and intimate, free-flowing camerawork.

It's an authentic, close-to-the-bone family portrait of shared history and unresolved grief that refuses to look away from the cracks.

A strong follow-up to Hen, it mines an excellent 8.

Set in the unforgiving 1846 Karoo, The Trick is a striking, gritty South African western that blurs the lines between frontier drama and psychological survival.

Director Mikael Adam frames the breathtaking landscape like an alien world, backed by committed performances from Mornay Fisser, Maurice Capidi, Trix Favier, and Rob Van Furen.

[laughs]

... and the, like, the Karoo Desert, and he wants-

You want a, you want a nice view

...

Out in the bush.

Yeah.

This site isn't too far from the Karoo Basin in South Africa, which is not as hospitable, I would say, than being next to a giant pretty lake.

Depends on your definition of scenically beautiful.

the room.

After a particularly tough week, she was just about to quit when Jeff invited her to join him for the biggest party of the summer on his yacht in Karoo, South Africa.

The guest list included Saudi princes and European royalty.

Valentina, who hadn't had a vacation in three years, thought this would be a good opportunity to have some fun and then quit afterwards.

As the yacht left the dock, Jeff explained to the group why he had chosen to sail to Karoo, South Africa.

He said there was a legend surrounding Karoo that had intrigued him for years.

It was believed that the mythical mermaids that swam in those waters could bring good fortune to all who fell under their spell.

Jeff laughed, saying that the legend was ridiculous.

In addition, progress had been made, he said, on five other projects under construction, including the Karreebosch Wind Farm, the Thakkadu Solar Farm, and the solar farm at the Eland PGM and Chrome Mine.

The Karreebosch Wind Farm is a 140-megawatt renewable energy project located in South Africa's Karoo region between Matjiesfontein and Sutherland.

And Thakkadu photovoltaic plant is a 255-megawatt utility-scale solar project near Klerksdorp in North West.

Northam will soon begin to install 360 megawatt hours of industrial batteries across the operations, Dunn reported during the company's results presentation covered by Mining Weekly.

For 17 days, he's chased across country his men don't know and can't read the way they read the Free State, columns converging from every direction the map allows, and the terrain itself turns traitor.

Boer ponies raised on sweet, high veld grass founder on the thin rank grazing of the Karoo, dropping under their riders by the hundred.

By the time he finds a ford low enough to cross back over the flooding Orange on the last day of February, the cost of the whole adventure has turned savage: some 4,000 horses gone, every gun lost, thousands of his men killed, captured, or simply melted away into the veldt.

He re-crosses with barely 50 riders still at his side.

The Place and the People.

It was winter in the Great Karoo.

The evening air was so crisp and cutting that one seemed to hear the crick-crack of the frost as it formed on the scant vegetation.

A skraal windie blew from the distant mountains, bringing with it a mingled odor of Karoo bush, sheep kraals, and smoke from the Kaffir huts.

None perhaps desirable in itself, but all so blent and purified in that rare, clear atmosphere, and so subservient to the exhilarating freshness, that Pitty van der Merwe took several sniffs of pleasure as he peered into the pale moonlight over the lower half of the divided door.

Then, with a little involuntary shiver, he closed the upper portion and turned to the ruddy warmth of the purring fire, which Willem was feeding with mealie cobs from the basket beside him.

Little Jan sat in the corner of the wide, old-fashioned rusbank, his large gray eyes gazing wistfully into the red heart of the fire, while his hand absently stroked Torry, the fox terrier, curled up beside him.

Mother, in her large Madeira chair at the side table, yawned a little over her book, for winter or summer, the mistress of a Karoo farm leads a busy life, and the end of the day finds her ready for a well-earned rest.