Thanks for all that context, Andre. I'll ask my friends who took the photo -- the friend with the white shirt, BTW, is also named Andre. Those landscapes really are magnificent, in the spring especially. Yet another Andre, (Brink, this one) wrote a terrifying-and-captivating story of the Groot Karoo, I think it was, "An Instant in the Wind" ... Can't imagine going down that pass at anything other than a very restrained speed--the gravel wd still be rated "extreme-to-over-the-top", I think, none the less so if one used a Brooks.
As you know, the ostrich-rearing industry based on feathers lasted only for a while, earlier in the past century while feather boas were in style, but the alternatives-to-cholesterol industry means that ostrich ranches are still producing today -- though Oudsthoorn may be quieter than in your day, Andre. On a happier note: our son, doing a Ph D in bio-mechanics in Australia, helped some colleagues on a computer-aided study of ostriches' gait. All lived to tell the story, both the birds (which are pets, more or less) and the scientists.
J.
