Hartebeesthoek

“I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.”
- William Wordsworth

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


"Hartebeesthoek" - Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 11" x 7.5" - Maree©

Driving towards Hartebeespoort Dam, we go through the area of Hartebeesthoek (Gauteng, South Africa), where the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory is situated in a Nature Reserve in a valley in the Magaliesberg hills, 50km west of Johannesburg.

The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) is the only major radio astronomy observatory in Africa. The Observatory began as Deep Space Station 51, built in 1961 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States of America. The station tracked many unmanned US space probes. These included the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter spacecraft which landed on the Moon or mapped it from orbit, the Mariner missions which explored the planets Venus and Mars and the Pioneers which measured the Sun's winds. ("Hartebeest" refers to Gnu, a species that used to roam the area in vast numbers).

This area is still one of vast open spaces and unspoilt landscapes, green rolling hills and steep gulleys, with wildlife roaming free and sometimes even crossing the road (luckily none of the Big 5!), like Warthogs, Monitors, Mongoose, snakes, tortoises, guinea fowl, hedgehogs, Striped Polecats and small buck. In fact, anything that's small enough to get through the fence. We normally drive through the area at about 60km per hour and I, for the life of me, cannot understand people whizzing past at 120kph, oblivious to the beauty of nature all around.