South Africa Guide
The Northern Cape
The Kalahari
While the Northern Cape has no shortage of dry, endless expanses, the most emotive by far is the Kalahari. The very name holds a resonance of sun-bleached, faraway spaces and the unknown vastness of the African interior, both harsh and magical. The name derives from the word kgalagadi (saltpans, or thirsty land), and describes the semi-desert stretching north from the Orange River to the Okavango delta in northern Botswana, west into Namibia and east until the bushveld begins to dominate in the catchment areas of the Vaal and Limpopo rivers.
Upington, the main town in the area, stands on the northern bank of the Orange at the heart of an irrigated corridor of intensive wheat, cotton and, most prominently, grape farms. At the far end of the farming belt, about an hour's drive west, the Orange picks up speed, and froths and tumbles into a huge granite gorge at Augrabies Falls, the focus of one of the area's two national parks. The other is the undoubted highlight of this area, the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. A vast desert sanctuary rich in game and boasting a magnificent landscape of red dunes and hardy vegetation, it's well worth the long trek to get there. If you're coming to it from Gauteng along the N14 highway, you can either turn onto the R31 (a long, bleak dirt road which should only be tackled in a sturdy vehicle) at Kuruman, site of a famous nineteenth-century mission station established by Robert and Mary Moffat, or travel on to Upington, from where the road is tarred for all but the last 45km.