Zoom in on the opening image of this feature. Read the biblical words on the rock, inscribed there by a British soldier during the Anglo-Boer War more than a century ago. They tell you more about the soul of the Eastern Cape frontier town of Cradock than a thousand testimonials.
New Cradock homeboy CHRIS MARAIS takes you on a morning stroll past some of the town's most significant icons.
The spirit of Ubuntu
(a human becomes human through other people) is alive and well in one small
corner of the Little Karoo. And the people of Uniondale are starting to count their blessings.
Available at selected
bookstores, country festivals, through national magazines like SA Country Life
and from this website from April 2009, Karoo Keepsakes is a great
memento, a gift among gifts and a traveling companion all rolled
into one book.
A week after moving down
to Cradock in the Karoo, CHRIS MARAIS finds himself on a journey that
eventually leads to the mystical town of Timbuktu. Chris takes the photo, gets the T-shirt and heads
home to meerkats, flat-topped mountains and his beloved JULES…
When you move to the Karoo, it’s the closest you’ll
ever get to emigrating from the urbanised, busy side of South Africa without having your passport stamped or crossing an official
border. Suddenly life slows down, thought patterns change and horizons open up.
Suddenly you start breathing deeply again. Here’s what happens when you come
and live in the Dry Country…
Compiled by CHRIS MARAIS and JULIENNE DU TOIT, authors of KAROO KEEPSAKES - ATRAVELLER'S GUIDE, on sale at this site and selected shops from April 2009
A dozen elements
of the Richtersveld: Pirates, Diamonds, Donkeys, Goats, Matjieshuise,
Rocks, River, Vygies, Bonnets, Very Big Snakes, Ostriches and Old Men.
And, of course, the ‘fridge that sounds like ten howler monkeys in chorus with
an elephant gagging on a plastic bag. And the lady who got French-kissed in the
worst possible way…
The centre of South Africa is a vast, silent, peaceful place. The Karoo’s clean air heals the body and its space unfolds
mind and spirit. Where, then, are all the wellness retreats?
Some travellers hate the thought of driving through the Karoo en route up to Jo’burg or down to Cape Town. They will slap on the loudest CD in the car, turn up the volume, pin the old driving ears back and ”we’ll see you at the Three Sisters fuel stop, my old mate!”
But when you switch off the rock and roll, pull to the side of the road and drink in some of the great vastness they call the Karoo, your senses start coming alive. Suddenly you have this urge to knock at the door of a distant farmhouse, break bread with a Karoo dynasty, take a slow meander through the nearest town and admire the buildings – or go on a donkey trek to somewhere down a dirt road. Maybe scarf down a brace of lamb chops. At some stage in your life, you simply have to let the Karoo Bug bite. Here are 21 reasons why...
What a year this has been. Two Sandton, Johannesburg, transplants coming to live in the Grassy Karoo. In the frontier town of Cradock, to be more precise. Selling a house, packing a ba-zillion boxes, transporting a pack of yodelling cats south - and here we are, on a far pleasanter planet...
On a sheep farm just outside Nieu Bethesda, Hester and JP Steynberg have uncovered a fascinating history on their farm Ganora, one that goes back more than 240 million years. And there are friendly meerkats, as Julienne du Toit discovers…
