Northern Cape Karoo Town Profiles, Towns
Khuboes, Northern Cape
Jun
It sits in the shade of three mountains: The Khuboesberg, the Vandersterr Berg and the Ploegberg.
At midday in the desert heat, nothing stirs much in Khuboes. But venture out onto its streets at night and you see the various neighbourhoods at play.
There is music, children run in the streets and the ‘old folks’ visit each other. The nomadic shepherds often come in from the veld to socialise and there is much singing, because Khuboes is rightly proud of its local choir.
Khuboes village was established as a place of worship for the stock-herding clans that constantly moved about these dry lands in search of grazing for their flocks of mainly goats.
A Rhenish Missionary Church was completed in Khuboes in 1893, and the village has become a significant Nama cultural centre.
Much of the magic of Khuboes is actually getting there. Your route to Khuboes (and eventually the nearby Park) is to drive across from Alexander Bay along the Orange River.
En route, you will come across Cornell’s Kop, named after the luckless prospector Fred Cornell, who could never find a single diamond in these diamond-rich parts.
He did, however, leave the world a wonderful book called The Glamour of Prospecting, which is a great insight into a diamond hunter’s adventures along the Orange River nearly a century ago.
Find our new e-Book, 101 Karoo Towns, HERE.
