West Coast Flowers have a spring in thier step

Every Spring, tourists and local nature lovers come from all over to pay homage to one of the most spectacular flower shows in the world.

The West Coast of South Africa, is an acquired taste, compared to the lush garden route. It is rocky, dry and sometimes quite featureless. This makes a huge about face in the spring months when wildflowers carpet huge swathes of it in a massive display of colour. This is starting right now!

The flowers appear after the winter rain in June and July, the flowers have started showing themselves this past week because of the heavy rains. The most famous area for flower hunting is the Namaqualand region, which has not see the same rainfall, so not yet in bloom. Late August and September are traditionally the blooming months.

A good place to look for flowers if you are in the area now, would be the West Coast National park, which is just over an hour up the R27 from Cape Town. You should start seeing small patches of bright flowers a little way up the R27 and getting progressively brighter till it just gets silly.