The Changing Landscapes on Route National 7, Tana to Toliara

View of Tana from Haute Ville near the ruins of the former Royal Palace.
It's not mist, it's pollution.

Tana is very hilly.
The lowland areas are dotted with lakes and flooded paddy fields, most of which also serve as brick making businesses.

Driving south on RN7, you soon leave the messy urban sprawl of Tana and dive into the rolling hills of the highlands...

Another hilly view near Antsirabe

More brick making businesses dot the hill sides around Ambositra

Approaching Fianarantsoa the hills get a little more rocky and wild.
There's significantly less rice cultivation.

Into the wilds of Andringitra National Park, the highlands change shape once again revealing impressive vertical walls of rock and scrubby forests alive with ring-tailed lemurs.

Parts of both Andringitra and Isalo National Parks look rather like the Australian bush - with lots of eucalypts and in places, red earth.

South of Ihosy the road takes you out of the highlands into far flatter, drier, less productive landscapes...

Once out of the highlands you drive through long stretches of very straight roads and open savannah. It's around here, past Ilalaka that you see a lot of sapphire mining in the few shallow river beds that the road passes over...

In the south of the country poverty becomes a far more noticeable reality.
The highlands, while still very poor has a climate that supports rice and veggie cultivation.
This landscape does neither.
These are migrant huts occupied by people drawn north with the promise of making money panning for gold in the rivers around Ilalaka...

Open savannah in the far south of the country, 100kms from the coast.

Dry river bed north of Toliara, the capital of the southern region, and the end of RN7

The reef runs several hundred kilometres north and south of Toliara
It supports the local population with fish, prawns, lobster and of course, tourism.

End of the road at Toliara (Tulear), in Western Madagascar.
Sun setting over the Mozambique Channel