#Matjiesfontein

[andre64]

𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗷𝗶𝗲𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗻

[ruthbancroftgarden]

Aloe microstigma

To show the variation in Aloe microstigma, here is a plant from another population farther to the west, near Matjiesfontein. Here the plants have leaves that are striped in addition to being peppered with small spots, and the racemes are often yellow (as seen here), though bicolored racemes may also be encountered.

-Brian

[denverapologist]

Matjiesfontein transport museum

I’m also writing a little a travel journal on a google doc for the occasion (traveling to Cape Town atm). Maybe I’ll post it sometime :>

[lazycrusadellama]

Exploring Rovos Rail: A Luxurious Journey Through Africa

Rovos Rail, often called "The Pride of Africa," offers one of the world's most luxurious and captivating rail travel experiences. Combining the elegance of a bygone era with the modern comforts of today, Rovos Rail journeys through some of Africa's most stunning landscapes and vibrant cities. Here's Rovos Rail, which is a must-experience for any travel enthusiast seeking an unforgettable African adventure.

The Rovos Rail Experience

From the moment you step aboard, Rovos Rail transports you to a world of luxury and sophistication. The meticulously restored vintage carriages exude an old-world charm, featuring polished wood, plush furnishings, and period decor that evoke the golden age of train travel. Each train accommodates a select number of passengers, ensuring an intimate and personalized experience.

Luxurious Accommodation

Rovos Rail offers a range of suites, each designed with comfort and style in mind. The Pullman Suites provide cosy, elegant spaces perfect for solo travellers or couples, while the Deluxe Suites offer more room and additional amenities. The Royal Suites span half a carriage for the ultimate luxury, featuring a lounge area and en-suite bathroom with a Victorian-style bathtub.

Gourmet Dining

Dining on Rovos Rail is a gastronomic delight. The onboard chefs craft exquisite meals using fresh, locally sourced ingredients, blending traditional and contemporary cuisine. Each meal is paired with a selection of South Africa's finest wines, enhancing the dining experience. The elegant dining cars, complete with crisp white tablecloths and fine china, create a refined atmosphere reminiscent of a grand restaurant.

Scenic Routes

Rovos Rail offers several iconic routes that showcase Africa's diverse beauty:

Pretoria to Cape Town Duration: 3 days Highlights: This classic journey traverses the heart of South Africa, passing through the magnificent Drakensberg Mountains and the stark beauty of the Karoo. Stops include the historic town of Matjiesfontein and the diamond city of Kimberley.

Victoria Falls Journey Duration: 4 daysHighlights: Traveling from Pretoria to Victoria Falls, this route takes you through Botswana and Zimbabwe, offering views of wildlife and the stunning landscapes of Hwange National Park. The journey culminates at the breathtaking Victoria Falls.

Dar es Salaam Safari Duration: 15 days Highlights: One of Rovos Rail's most epic journeys, this route travels from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam, passing through South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Tanzania. Highlights include game drives in the Madikwe Game Reserve, visiting the Great Zimbabwe Ruins, and crossing the dramatic Rift Valley.

Onboard Amenities

Rovos Rail ensures that passengers can access a range of amenities to enhance their journey. The Observation Car at the train's rear offers panoramic views and an open-air balcony, perfect for taking in the scenery. The Lounge Car provides a relaxing space to socialize or enjoy a book, while the Smoking Lounge caters to those who appreciate a cigar or pipe in an elegant setting.

Conclusion

Rovos Rail is more than just a train journey; it's an immersive experience that combines luxury, adventure, and the stunning beauty of Africa. Whether you're travelling through the picturesque landscapes of South Africa, witnessing the majesty of Victoria Falls, or embarking on a grand safari to Dar es Salaam, Rovos Rail offers an unparalleled travel experience. Rovos Rail promises a journey like no other for those seeking a blend of nostalgia and modern luxury.

[travelistic-sa]

Matjiesfontein Travels: Journey Through Time in South Africa.

[spacefrontier]

New 66-foot-wide antenna dishes will be built, online, and operational in time to provide near-continuous communications services to Artemis astronauts at the Moon later this decade.

Called LEGS, short for Lunar Exploration Ground Sites, the antennas represent critical infrastructure for NASA’s vision of supporting a sustained human presence at the Moon.

The first three of six proposed LEGS are planned for sites in New Mexico, South Africa, and Australia.

LEGS will become part of NASA’s Near Space Network, managed by the agency’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program and led out of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

As a satellite orbits the Moon, it encodes its data onto a radio frequency signal. When a LEGS antenna comes into view, that satellite (or rover, etc.) will downlink the signal to a LEGS antenna. This data is then routed to mission operators and scientists around the globe who can make decisions about spacecraft health and orbit or use the science data to make discoveries.

The LEGS antennas are intended to be extremely flexible for users. For LEGS-1, LEGS-2, and LEGS-3, NASA is implementing a “dual-band approach” for the antennas that will allow missions to communicate using two different radio frequency bands — X-band and Ka-band. Typically, smaller data packets — like telemetry data — are sent over X-band, while high-resolution science data or imagery needs Ka-band. Due to its higher frequency, Ka-band allows significantly more information to be downlinked at once, such as real-time high-resolution video in support of crewed operations.

Further LEGS capacity will be sought from commercial service providers and will include a “tri-band approach” for the antennas using S-band in addition to X- and Ka-band.

The first LEGS ground station, or LEGS-1, is at NASA’s White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico. NASA is improving land and facilities at the complex to receive the new LEGS-1 antenna.

The LEGS-2 antenna will be in Matjiesfontein, South Africa, located near Cape Town. In partnership with SANSA, the South African National Space Agency, NASA chose this location to maximize coverage to the Moon. South Africa was home to a ground tracking station outside Johannesburg that played a role in NASA’s Apollo missions to the Moon in the 1960s. The agency plans to complete the LEGS-2 antenna in 2026. For LEGS-3, NASA is exploring locations in Western Australia.

These stations will fully complement the existing capabilities of the Near and Deep Space Networks and allow for more robust communications services to the Artemis campaign.

[4x4community]

Road Trip to Matjiesfontein

Forum: Western Cape Posted By: Prof Post Time: 2024/04/14 at 03:52 PM http://dlvr.it/T5V6TS

[jobthomas]

Road trip with my parents

Road trip with my parents

Last November, my parents finally were able to come down to South Africa to meet their granddaughter. My parents had never been to a proper game park, so we took them to Addo. Along the way, we spent time in Prince Albert, and Knysna. Here are some pics:

[worstjourney]

Physicist C.S. Wright visited this tiny settlement east of Cape Town when the Terra Nova stopped in South Africa in August 1910, to measure radiation.  Apparently it was stronger there than in Canada or England.

I looked it up because I was curious (not procrastinating at all, definitely no) and it appears not to have changed one single bit since then, except there are cars in the photos.

Apparently the trains there were terrible – in his memoir, Wright wrote “I had my first taste of a really well-run Government railway,” but he is very snarky about this railway in a letter to his father so I think perhaps this may be some of that Silas Sarcasm.

[the20th]

Hotel windows (Kimberley, Prince Albert, Matjiesfontein)

[chrislgodden]

Splash of Red #red #bus #matjiesfontein #westerncape #southafrica #travel #travels #traveler #travelphotography #internationaltraveler #travelpics #cruisepics #travelmania #letsgotravel #lovetotravel #passionpassport #traveldiary #instatravel #explore #tourism #traveltheworld #traveldiary #traveltheworldwithme

[ruthbancroftgarden]

Aloe microstigma

We have quite a few different forms of Aloe microstigma at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, and this one from Matjiesfontein (in South Africa’s Western Cape Province) is distinctive in having leaves that are markedly striped as well as peppered with small spots, and with brown teeth along the leaf margins. It is basically a yellow-flowered form, though it has a bit of orange at the bud stage.

-Brian

[ianfaulkner1-blog]

​By Roxanne Reid Imagine the foresight it must take to see a bare patch of veld and dream up a fully fledged village and health spa in the middle of nowhere. This is what happened when Scottish railwayman James Logan founded in South Africa back in 1884. Discover why to visit Lord Milner Hotel and in the .

​Imagine too the tenacity of Logan going ahead with his plans to build The Lord Milner Hotel in 1899, in the early stages of the Anglo Boer War of 1899-1902. Before long some 10 000 British troops were camping around the village and the hotel was taken over as a military hospital, the turret as a lookout. 

The facade of the Lord Milner Hotel

Once the war was over, the town and hotel were restored to their intended purpose as hotel and health spa while the concession at the station did a roaring trade supplying steam trains with water and passengers with refreshments. People who flocked to for its curative clean air in those early days included the likes of writer and feminist Olive Schreiner, Winston Churchill’s father Randolph, colonial empire builder Cecil John Rhodes and writer Rudyard Kipling. That today is a time capsule of the Victorian era is thanks to another visionary who came along almost a century later. Hotelier David Rawdon did such a good job of restoring the hotel and town to their former glory that was declared a National Monument in 1975.

Old fashioned fuel pumps and broekie lace on the main road

​There’s an ageless tranquillity here that’s hard to find in the fast-paced modern world. There’s little traffic so you can wander the streets in peace, admire old buildings and outdated petrol pumps on the side of the road, follow a puff of dust and see where it takes you.

The Laird's Arms pub

When the Blue Train or Rovos Rail stops at the Victorian station, visitors pour out like ants to visit the museum and the hotel, to admire the buildings in a time warp. It’s a frenetic time with lots of foot traffic and clicking of cameras, but things settle down when the whistle blows and the train moves away again on its trans- journey. ​​Then it’s time for those left behind to take tea in one of the hotel’s lounges or order a drink in the pub, to go for a walk across the veld or, later in the afternoon, to watch the sunset and the first glimmerings of what will be a spectacular night sky here in the dry . Relax. Breathe in the clean air. Surrender yourself to be restored and revitalised so you can face a return to city life with equanimity.

train on its trans- journey

Things to do in 1. Download the free VoiceMap app (Apple and Android) as a guide to walk you around the village, point out some of the old buildings and fill you in on the little village’s intriguing history. 2. Take a trip on the old London double-decker red bus. At 18:00 each day except Sunday it takes visitors on a short tour of the village, picking out some of the landmarks like the house where Olive Schreiner stayed and the field where England and South Africa played the first friendly cricket match (James Logan was a great cricket fan). Finish your whistle-stop tour at the Laird’s Arms (see point 5) next to the hotel in time for a drink before dinner.

Old carts and a London red bus outside the station

3. Delve into the past in the museum – all three of them. The Transport Museum has a collection of vintage cars from the 1930s to 1960s, old bikes and train carriages. The Railway Museum on the station platform has a station master’s office dating back to the 1890s and the original signal room. 

Wouldn't you love these see these gents out on the road in ?

Victorian furniture in one of the small, cold rooms beneath the station

​By far my favourite place to get lost for an hour or two is the Marie Rawdon Museum under the station. There are vast collections of everything from kitchen utensils, old cameras and typewriters, to bedpans, dolls and war souvenirs, even a full-on pharmacy. The rooms under the station used to be a jail during the Anglo Boer War; feel the cold and damp and imagine what it must have been like for the prisoners during a winter. 

Collection of bedpans and basins in the museum

Museum collections include cobbler's equipment and woodworking tools

The apothecary, or pharmacy, in museum

4. Walk around the village with your camera to capture memories of the restored old buildings. See the house where Olive Schreiner stayed in attempt to cure her asthma in the dry air, the old post office (now a gift shop) where she used to post her letters. Admire the bank building with its original teller’s counter and banking equipment intact, the pink church that used to be a concert hall and school until the 1960s. 

The old post office

​The yellow courthouse and jail would have been known to Boer hero Gideon Scheepers who spent time in the jail before he was tried for treason in Graaff-Reinet and executed by firing squad in 1902. 

court house and jail

​Visit Logan’s General Store (now a coffee shop) and see the flourmill and mineral waterworks where Logan produced lemonade and ginger beer to sell to travellers. A windmill harnessed the winds to generate electricity – a South African first – and power the mill. There’s a rather nice collection of succulents in the garden today.

General Store, now a coffee shop

5. Spend some time in the Laird’s Arms to soak up its saloon-like ambience. A local character, Johnny, plays rousing honky-tonk tunes in the evenings while you order a drink at the polished wooden bar with its shiny brass taps. It’s a wonderful place to imagine what the atmosphere in must have been like more than a hundred years ago. If you’re here at lunch time, order a pub lunch.

Johnny at the piano in the Laird's Arms

Atmospheric dark wood and brass in the Laird's Arms pub

6. Explore the hotel, its grand staircase and reception rooms for a feel of what those who came here for their health at the turn of the 20th century would have experienced. Take a seat here or there to fully appreciate the moment. 

The grand staircase in the hotel's lobby

One of the sitting rooms at the Lord Milner Hotel

I love the sitting room at the back where the piano is; last time we visited a young couple was enjoying a cup of tea, retreating into the coolness from a stinking hot day outside.

The music room, with its piano and harp

7. Ask the staff about the ghosts that are said to haunt the hotel. On our very first visit we heard about a woman in white who is sometimes seen near the tower. On our most recent visit, we commented on the strange eyes of the blonde-haired child in a painting in the Marie Rawdon Museum. The chap in the museum told us that a visitor had recently taken a photo of it with her cell phone, another with her daughter’s camera. Then she screamed and came scuttling out as if the hounds of hell were at her heels. Turned out the cell phone pic was fine, but in the other there was a shadow over the child’s shoulder as if someone was standing behind her. A ghost? Who can tell?

Painting of the girl who may have a ghost over her shoulder

8. Explore the gardens behind the hotel to appreciate how they survive in the extremes of really hot summers and really cold winters. If you go far enough you’ll discover the swimming pool, where residents can relax on a lounger with a good book.

Rooms set in green gardens

9. Duck into the tiny traveller’s chapel along the river behind the hotel to imagine how perfect it would be for an intimate wedding. Take a moment to appreciate the serenity and listen to the sounds of the tinkling fountain outside. The building’s original use was far less unruffled; it used to house gas-generating equipment to light the town.

Traveller's chapel,

10. See David Rawdon’s house where he died in 2010. It’s the last cottage down the side road where the pink church is. Someone told us he ordered champagne the night he died and the bottle and glass have been left untouched. Someone else told us it was whisky so – as with all good legends – the stories are already getting jumbled. 11. Enjoy dinner in the Victorian-style dining room with its dark antique furniture and heavy drapes. The food is of the traditional variety, with bobotie, lamb shank and malva pudding making an appearance. Service is friendly but slow when the dining room is full, so try to relax and downshift to time.

Things to do in : take a walk on the veld

12. Go for a walk in the veld, to feel the ‘sense of wild exhilaration and freedom’ that Olive Schreiner so loved. There used to be a British encampment with 10 000 men and 20 000 horses here in about 1900, so you might even pick up a relic from those days. ​

The hotel at night

accommodation When it comes to your accommodation, you get a choice between suites or rooms in the hotel, historic cottages in the village, or the lower priced Matjies Motel for more budget conscious travellers. I’ve stayed in a cottage in the village, the main hotel (which I love for its classic style) and the Riverbank Rooms at the motel. The latter aren’t as posh as the hotel but still perfectly comfortable at a lower price, with the bonus of a parking spot close to your door. Like it? Pin this image! 

You may also enjoy Spend a night in jail at Willowmore in the National Park: the ultimate guide Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za

[4x4community]

Roadworks between Lainsburg & Matjiesfontein

Forum: Western Cape Posted By: Prof Post Time: 2024/04/14 at 11:59 AM http://dlvr.it/T5Tmpk

[emilianoscatarzi]

Today I feel landscape. From Land-escapes 2017. A very special thanks to Louis Daguerre. ©️Emiliano Scatarzi _ all right reserved. . . . . . . . . . . . . #emilianoscatarzi #daguerre #louisdaguerre #bw #blackandwhite #italianphotographer #fotografia_italiana #shosholozameyl #train #travel #landscape #fujixpro1 #southafrica #matjiesfontein #biancoenerophoto #biancoenero #fotografia #photography #photographer #fotografo (presso Matjiesfontein, Western Cape, South Africa) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsl8SvnlRuK/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=12txuwv4v0vv