Cape Travel Guides - Accommodation, Safaris, Adventure

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Province: Northern Cape
Region: Kalahari

Towns:
Danielskuil  |  Hotazel  |  Kathu  |  Kuruman  |  Olifantshoek | Postmasburg  |  Van Zylsrus

The sun-drenched Kalahari, with its ancient, undulating landscape and endless horizons, evokes memories of a land before time. An often bleak and forbidding country, its shimmering spaces spread out beneath an unrelenting, hot and metallic sky. It seduces visitors and those living in its towns and villages with a disarming lack of pretension hiding an embarrassing wealth of natural and mineral riches. For, between the simple sweep of its horizon and the clean, spherical arc of its cerulean sky, visitors will find historical towns and villages, the easy-going charm of the country and an always-warm welcome
. 
The renowned Kalahari Raptor Route, starting at Kuruman's Raptor Rehabilitation Centre - where you can view birds (in rehabilitation) at close range - tracks the flight of our majestic birds of prey across the Kalahari, the Green Kalahari and the Diamond Fields. The Raptor Route is a result of determined diplomacy winning farmers over to the conservation cause. Every circling black eagle symbolises our deep-seated commitment to working together for the common good, an attribute not withheld from visitors!

Today, the Kalahari is home to 40 raptor and vulture species (of 67 species found in South Africa) and seven owl species (of 12 species nationally). If the Raptor Route is a triumph for our wildlife, the Namakwari Route is no less a success story for our region and its neighbours. Derived from the names Namaqualand and Kalahari - the route links Gauteng and the Western Cape, South Africa's two most urbanised areas - it offers the traveller an alternative view of the country and a chance to experience the beauty of the Kalahari's towns, the awesome Orange River and the kaleidoscopic shower of Namaqualand's spring colour. 

Beneath the clean sweep of our uncluttered horizon, not far beneath the Kalahari's great blanket of red and white sands, hides a treasure trove of iron, manganese and other precious ores. Though the mechanised giants of the open-cast mining industry have gouged great, gaping wounds in the desert floor, they have - with all the modern technology at their disposal - only dented the surface of its enormous wealth. In towns like Black Rock, Hotazel and Dingleton, the mechanical behemoths will continue to harvest nature's mineral wealth for decades to come. 
And, each day, in an exuberant display of superabundance, millions of litres of crystalline, mineral-rich water pours into this arid landscape. 

Flowing from an amazing dolomite spring as strongly and as steadily as if the rock had been struck by Moses, the beautiful Eye of Kuruman feeds forests of majestically tall camelthorn trees silhouetted against the seamless horizon of the great, mystical and miraculous Kalahari desert. For further information on the Kalahari please contact us.