Namaqualand is stuated in the northern part of West Cape and in in teh western part of North Cape. The natural borders are the Orange River in the north and teh Elephant River in the south. The western border is the Atlantic Ocean and the towns Springbok, Gamope, Kliprand, Vredendal en Vanrhijnsdorp can be considered as the eastern border. The total surface of this area is 55,000 km².

At the end of a 5 km long small, dusty, bumpy road about 20 km form the small town Kamieskroon you pass the gates of Namaqua National, formerly known as Skilpad Wildflower Reserve. The annual rainfall is about 340 mm. This falls mostly in the wintermonths June, July and August. During these wintermonths the temperature drops down to 7°C and it can reach up to 32°C in summer. In this park about 3,500 different plants grow, of which 1,000 are endemic.

When you enter the park at the end of August, you are directly overwhelmed by the yellow-ornage coloured fields with the Namaqualand daisies: Dimorphoteca sinuata.

I visited the Namaqua National Park for the first and only time in August 2000. For someone who has never been here before, there was still a lot to see, although 2000 was considered as a very bad year for the bulbs. From the Iridaceae: the yellow flowering Ferraria divaricata, the blue-green flowering Ferraria unicata, Lapeirousia silenoides, various Babiana species, a.o. B. framesii en Ixia's. The family Hyacinthaceae is among others represented by various Albuca species like A. spiralis and A. ensifolia, but also Tenicroa, Trachyandra species like T. falcata, and of course Lachenalias.

In one of the fields on the park was a sign with on it the text 'Bulbinella field'. All kind of plants grew there and flowered, but not even one Bulbinella. I was there at the right moment! This can be ascribed to the small amount of rain in the Winter of 2000. The result of the greenhouse effect and the global warming?!