The Giants Playground - Keetmanshoop,Namibia

The Giants playground is situated on yhe farm,Gariganus. It's called the Giants playground because of the way in which the massive dolerite boulders have apperently been placed one on top of another by some gigantic force, creating strange rock formations and a series of mazes. You'll have to keep your bearings when exploring the maize site. You can easily find yourself a few hundred meters from where you thought you should be.The rock formations make for a couple of hours of interesting hiking,plus you'll get some good 

photographs.

The formation: About 180 million years ago during the early jurasic epochm the tetonic plate movements within the great single land mass known a Pangaea were begining to cause the supper continent to seperate and divide into the continent of Laurarisia to the North and Gondangwa to the South . The earth's surface, in many places, was subjected to enormous upheavals. In the area around Keetmanshoop molten magma pushed it's way through long cracks in the overlaying rock. Over 10 millions of years, the deep layers of sedimentary rocks through which the dolerite had intruded were eroded away exposing the harder rock that can, in many places be seen as the dark backbone like formation running along the top of a row of hills. These are called dolerite  dykes and are usually between 3-10 metres in width and can run from a few hundred of metres to more than 20 km in lenght.

The dolerite dykes and surrounding area while at sub surface were subjected to 'spheroidal weathering', caused by water flowing through the cracks and fissures in dykes. In later times when the rocks has been exposed they futher experience millions of years of ongoing temperature weathering that also caused the rocks to crack.Wind blow and soil erosion also helps with the polish of the rocks.