It was a little hot at that time, however, to stay longer than about 30 minutes. Also, we were the only ones there at first, so we enjoyed the solitude of the place. We visited at 11am and the trees were still beautiful. Whichever site you choose, I would think that sunrise or sunset would be the best times to visit due to the dramatic photo opportunities, or even sans camera for the dramatic outlines of the trees. And any questions are responded to by being handed a brief pamphlet with a few words in various languages of the site. At the site we visited, the Quiver Tree Forest, you immediately feel bad that you're disturbing the woman running the place because she obviously has better things to do than attend to people who wish to pay to enter her farm. I understand from the Tripadvisor reviews of the Mesosaurus Fossil Site that you get an entertaining guided tour of their 'forest' of 5000 trees.

But NAD 55 per person is rather a stiff fee for nothing other than gaining entry.

An oxymoron as they are neither trees nor a forest! But it was wonderful nonetheless and we did enjoy the tranquility of the 'forest' and the beauty of the trees. The quiver tree forest we saw has 250 trees. I wish I'd known about the Mesosaurus Fossil Site - read its reviews here. But why oh why does the woman running the place have to be so utterly awful? This quiver tree forest was declared a national monument in 1955 and yet it is run by someone who appears to despise tourists. So pay special attention to where you are walking until proper signage is posted here. Not finding the Quivertree Forest entrance gate was frustrating, but getting lost in the Giant's Playground was a more serious issue. Otherwise, there would be better directional signs at both places. It appears to us that the farm owner doesn't really care whether you easily find your way around these two sites or not. Other campers we followed couldn't find it either. It's not marked and we had to drive around the large camping site searching for it (a fence blocks entrance except at the gate). We had trouble locating the entrance gate to the walking path. It's not really a forest but a dense stand of Quivertrees spread around rock hills. The Quivertree Forest is nice and makes for some great photos against the blue sky. This all might sound funny, but it wasn't not knowing where you are with the temperature 36 C. Our guess is that some jokester removed some of the path signs and they have not been replaced. Luckily, we were able to spot the brown water tower off in the distance and walked in that direction to eventually get back to the parking lot.

After 20 long minutes of this wandering, we eventually climbed to the top of a tall rock to try to get some perspective. No one else was there when we visited in the late afternoon so calling out to others was futile. It's easy to walk in the complete wrong direction and not really know where you are. All you can see are more and more rock piles. The walking path is set below all the rocks so it's impossible to see the horizon to help locate where you are. All the rock constellations, while beautiful, look the same after a while and it's nearly impossible to remember if you passed them before (some seemed staged while others are amazingly authentic). With no signs, we soon became disoriented and didn't know which way to go. While it proceeds in a right-hand circle around the site, it also twists and turns all the time. But after a while the signs stopped and the main path branched off to here and there. It starts out fine with a couple of white arrow signs pointing in the right direction. The danger here is that the circular path through the stones is not well marked. A tall brown water tower stands next to it. There's a parking lot with a nice modern toilet. It's located off a gravel road 5 km north of the Quivertree Forest (same entrance fee). Giant's Playground is a maze of stone piles that seemingly stretches on forever.

Quiver tree forest keetmanshoop