As I mentioned in my previous post, we spent the long weekend away from home visiting the beautiful Golden Gate Highlands national park in the Free State. Other than gushing about the beauty and complaining about the bitter cold, I thought I’d share my five tips from the weekend.Yes, and some (mostly HDR ’cause I’m a little obsessed at the moment) photos.
- If you’re visiting Clarens (which you should!), don’t pay R60 for a pretentious breakfast. Go to the Roter Hahn Bierstube Und Deli and enjoy a very wide choice of German beers with an even better meal.
- Pack lots of blankets. Then another one. Also, a hot water bottle.
- Take a good single malt with, it fights off the cold.
- If you’re camping in a spot that doesn’t get a lot of sun, stay in bed ’till the sun hits your tent.
- Visit the vulture restaurant on the Oribi loop drive. Maybe you’ll have better luck than we did and see some of these amazing birds.
A mountainous view from the Glen Reenen rest camp reception area
Looking back towards Glen Reenen rest camp from the vulture restaurant’s parking area.
An experimental HDR panorama of a watering hole set in the mountains
An experimental HDR panorama of a view on the mountains from the Blesbok loop drive
Another HDR experiment, the golden light on the left of the cliff face is from the setting sun
Some people in the image to add scale to the mountain side 🙂
A last view on the iconic colours of Golden Gate
All images by the author: © catterflyworx 2014. Please contact me if you would like to use any images from this site.
Travels through a geek's mind 
Great shots I have never even heard of free state before thanks for sharing!
Pleasure! Glad you enjoyed.