OK, for the record, nearly all of the Mesosaurus remains found on Dr. Geit Steenkamp’s Spitskop farm are not fossilized bone but are the imprints of bodies laid down in the mud of a shallow sea that stretched from Africa to South American. Break open the right piece of grey slate rock and you may find a perfect impression of this primitive animal when it died and was covered in a layer of fine ash 250 million years ago.

Mesosaurus in the billions lived and died in the muddy sea and they have become the primary evidence that the continents were once joined and then split apart. Mesosaurus fossils and imprints have been found in Brazil and here on Spitskop farm, and they are exactly the same.

Believe it or not, it has only been since the late 1940s that science concluded it wasn’t just coincidence that the western coastline of Africa and the eastern coastline of South America were matched pieces of a puzzle. There is no coincidence in nature. Imagine Geit’s surprise when the strange rock his son found turned out to be more evidence of plate dynamics. He and his son lead entertaining tours on their property on yet another journey back in time on our trip through Africa.

Geit’s bush camp is rated highly and for good reason. It is neat, clean, has hot water and for a bonus, there’s a Sociable Weaver nest in the tree at our site. We follow him in the Beagle out onto the farm and stop at the grave of a German soldier killed in an attack by the indigenous Nama people in 1907 – another depressing story of colonial expansion in Africa. But I digress. The imprinted fossil remains Geit shows us are truly astonishing in their detail and we have a blast exclaiming over this one and that one. Paleontologists assume there are endless remains to be found here. Geit agrees with me that it is in the looking for them that lays the pleasure. At least when it isn’t blazing hot out.

Dolerite rocks are the other attraction on the tour. Lava that didn’t quite make it all the way to the surface cooled just below, and as time went on the ground above the cooled dolerite eroded and exposed the material. The gigantic stones were left carefully stacked on each other, a sculpture garden courtesy of time. We hang around after Geit plays a tune on the rocks – he is really a good tour guide – and try to capture the view of the rocks and Quiver Trees. With over 5,000 Quiver Trees on the property and who knows how many rocks (haha) I give up and instead focus on these crazy crickets – aren’t they cute?