[imagesource:facebook/kyleincpt]

Driving down the M3 on your way to Newlands forest or Kirstenbosch, you’ll notice a couple of lilies popping out of the dirt on the highway islands.

What you’re seeing is the special seasonal occurrence of amaryllis belladonna, better known as the March lily, the Jersey lily, belladonna-lily, or naked-lady-lily.

Meanwhile, South African landscape photographer Kyle Goetsch saw a similar species – the crinum paludosum, commonly known as bushveld vlei lilies – in full force as they began blooming on Sandhof Farm in Namibia.

Kyle is based in Cape Town, but he made the trek specifically to witness and captured the most stunning photos of the rare phenomenon.

Just wow:

 

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A post shared by Kyle Goetsch (@kyleincpt)

Kyle told SAPeople that the “lilies bloom in their millions only when enough rainwater fills the 700-hectare pan at Sandhof Farm, Namibia.”

And once the lilies do bloom, it only lasts for 4-6 days “so getting to this remote location in time to see the blooming is quite a challenge”, he says.

Kyle spent two days trying to do justice to the incredible scale of blooming lilies, and frankly, he did a super job:

Image: Facebook / KyleinCpt

Image: Facebook / KyleinCpt

Image: Facebook / KyleinCpt

Image: Facebook / KyleinCpt

Image: Facebook / KyleinCpt

The Saffa with a camera seems to go to the area whenever he can to see the lilies in bloom, commenting one year that the Sandhof Lilly Pan is a clay plain in the southern region of Namibia near the town of Maltehohe (I’ve starred it on Google Maps, have you?):

 

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A post shared by Kyle Goetsch (@kyleincpt)

Wow again.

Someone aptly commented: “If I saw this I would be quite worried that I had died”.

Yes. Wow.

Sorry, but that is the only word in my vocabulary right now.