Mzanzitravel Magazine - Issue 9

Discover
Karoo Highlands Route …
Truly off the beaten track, hiding deep inside the heart of
the Karoo between the three main north-south highways
- the N7, N12 and the N1 - lie a string of small towns that
make up the Karoo Highlands Route. Those who take
the time to turn off the main highways and come here to
explore, will find soul-refreshing peace and tranquillity,
and a delightful choice of experiences.
Situated in the southern part of the Northern Cape, just north of the Western Cape
provincial border, the route passes through the towns of Nieuwoudtville, Calvinia,
Williston, Sutherland, Fraserburg, Carnarvon, Loxton and Victoria West. The
plateau that makes up the Karoo Highlands is the largest plateau outside of Asia,
and a place where humans have been living for 500,000 years. Their presence is
richly recorded in ancient San rock art found throughout the region.
Here you can also connect with history going even further back –
looking back all of 13-billion years to the very beginnings of our
universe through the giant telescope at Sutherland. There is no
place that beats this area for gazing at the crystal clear night skies
sparkling with billions and billions of stars. It is also a fossilrich
region where pre-dinosaurs once roamed, and home to
the largest variety of succulents found anywhere on earth, with over 9,000 plant
species.
It is the Khoi-San people who once roamed here who gave the Karoo its name,
derived from the Khoi word ‘karusa’, which means dry and barren thirstland.
The area is made up of vast, sandy and rocky planes, covered in shrubs and
succulents, with typical Karoo flat-topped hills dotted throughout, as well as
occasional mountainous crags and valleys.
Apart from the astronomical observatory with the largest optical telescope in the
southern hemisphere, Sutherland offers much else to do, like a visit to the museum
or the birth home of the famous poet NP van Wyk Louw, restaurants, hiking in
the open veld, learning about medicinal plants used by the Khoi-San, and
more. Some 80km outside Carnarvon is the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
which, upon completion will host the world’s biggest radio telescope
and is considered to be one of the biggest scientific projects ever
launched.
The entire area is also rich in Anglo Boer War history,
with British military blockhouses and other battle-site
relics found everywhere. Corbelled houses,
as built by the trekboere, migrant frontier
stock farmers who moved ever deeper
inland in the mid-to-late 1700s, are
also found here, some serving now
Historic corbelled house near Williston
Grobler du Preez / Shutterstock.com