Blyde River Canyon — South Africa Panorama Route
849.00 د.إ
The Blyde River Canyon from the Three Rondavels viewpoint in Mpumalanga, South Africa — the three cylindrical red escarpment towers reflected in the Blydepoort Dam, the canyon walls revealing 2 billion years of geological strata.
Description
The Blyde River Canyon is the third largest canyon in the world and the largest ‘green’ canyon — its subtropical climate and rainfall support dense indigenous vegetation on the canyon walls, contrasting with the arid canyons of the American southwest. The Three Rondavels viewpoint provides the canonical composition: three cylindrical red quartzite towers named for their similarity to traditional Sotho round houses, their peaks above 1,800 metres and their bases reflected in the Blydepoort Dam 800 metres below. This image was made at 7am during the clear light of the Mpumalanga winter dry season, before the haze that builds through the day reduces the canyon’s visual clarity. Shot on a 24-70mm zoom at f/11, the canyon walls’ geological layering — from the basement granite through the quartzite to the cap rock — is clearly legible in the horizontal colour bands.
