The Karoo, with its vast landscapes, diverse vegetation, and stunning scenery, is unquestionably one of South Africa’s most precious gems. Experience moving Karoo tales from the heart of this remarkable region.
The Karoo, with its vast landscapes, diverse vegetation, and stunning scenery, is unquestionably one of South Africa’s most precious gems. Experience moving Karoo tales from the heart of this remarkable region.
There was a time when Graaff-Reinet was a serious drinker’s town, what with a thriving wine and brandy industry amidst thousands of thirsty frontier people.
Graaff-Reinet is the kind of Karoo town where you arrive as a visitor – and leave with dreams of returning as a resident.
For those looking for a change of pace, doing your homework on a potential new town is essential for finding the perfect balance of affordability, safety, social capital and a healthy dose of eccentricity.
No one expects you to climb a mountain to visit a butterfly, unless you’re on the hike up the Compassberg, the peak that looms over Nieu Bethesda.
This vibrant Karoo farming community has history in spades, outdoor adventures for everyone, and a bunch of farm stalls to delight all passing travellers.
From packing the perfect padkos to spotting South Africa’s national bird, Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit offer up their tips and tricks for travelling through the Karoo.
There are few more heartening sights in a dorp than a properly restored and lovingly maintained old home or a new one that is in harmony with its surroundings.
Cradock, where the Great Fish River surges past like a water python on a mission, is bigger than a village, smaller than your average upcountry town. And, like the old Cheers TV show, it’s a place where almost everyone knows your name.
When Tokas Lodewyk played his solo set the first time I saw the ‘Karoo Kitaar Blues’, it wasn’t his casual brilliance, at times using only one hand, that caught my attention. It was the faraway look in his eyes.
In the deep old Garob, far from the cities and not even all that close to Karoo dorpies, a seven-course degustation feast is laid out in a small converted shed. Welcome to the Rabbit Hole.
See the man in the early morning light, puffing on an old pipe as he checks on the state of the Sri Lankan gourds, purple Russian tomatoes and the leivoor dam down at his vast veggie patch in Prince Albert.
Quieter country places allow more time for reflection, innovation, and oneness with nature — all rare commodities in cities.
The stoep-tasting weekend started by Rose and Gordon Wright 10 years ago has developed into an annual R75-million economic boost for Graaff-Reinet.
To the ǀXam and San people, being in the world as a person includes “the sky’s things” – an understanding of and deep connection with the cosmos.
A Fish River farm museum tells the story of a legendary Eastern Cape family and its fine Merino wool.
Cradock has a Victorian-era-style streetscape that dates back nearly 160 years. It was restored by one of this Eastern Cape Karoo town’s most remarkable women.
It’s been a cold and wet winter, with Cape Town experiencing torrential rain and Joburg icy day and night. But parts of the Cape welcomed the precipitation that broke a nine-year drought.
At the end of the Aberdeen Flats in the Eastern Cape, lie the legendary Plains of Camdeboo. They yield abruptly to the Sneeuberg peaks rising above the Karoo, like ironstone ramparts, just north of Pearston.
Blackie de Swardt, his wife Sheryl and their son Stephen are all hard-working souls. It does seem, however, that they just have far too much fun down on Prior Grange Farm outside Springfontein in the southern Free State.
Back in the late 1970s my brother used to sink mine shafts in far-flung Kalahari spots. He and his mates would occasionally storm a little seaside village called Port Nolloth, on a red wine and crayfish raid.
Picture, if you will, a tumbledown railway siding in the Karoo semi-desert where Christmas angels are made by an outpost community of exceptional wire crafters.
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