Nama-Karoo stays
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The Nama-Karoo is the great open interior: dwarf shrubland and grass across the high plateau of the Northern and Eastern Cape, summer rain when it comes at all, sheep country, dolerite koppies and horizons with nothing on them. It is the landscape most South Africans drive through on the way somewhere else, and the one that rewards stopping the most.
What it offers is space, silence and sky. Sutherland, on its western edge, is the coldest town in the country and the site of the Southern African Large Telescope, because the air here is dry and the nights are genuinely dark. Graaff-Reinet, Nieu-Bethesda, Prince Albert and Cradock are Victorian and Cape Dutch villages set in it, and Camdeboo, Karoo and Mountain Zebra national parks protect its escarpments and valleys.
Winter is cold and crystal clear, with snow on the high ground and the best stargazing of the year. Summer is hot in the day and mild at night, and a thunderstorm crossing the plain is worth the trip on its own. Spring brings lambs and, after rain, a green flush across ground that looked dead a fortnight earlier. Pair the Karoo with gravel cycling, dark skies and the small-town food that has quietly become a reason to come.
- When is the best time to visit the Karoo?
- Autumn and spring are the most comfortable, winter is cold, dry and the best time for stargazing and for walking in the middle of the day, and summer is hot but delivers thunderstorms and green country after rain. Nights are cold in every season except midsummer.
- Where should I stay in the Nama-Karoo?
- Graaff-Reinet and Nieu-Bethesda under the Sneeuberg, Prince Albert at the foot of the Swartberg Pass, Cradock near Mountain Zebra National Park, Sutherland for the observatory, and the farm stays and guest cottages on the plains between them.
- Is the Karoo good for stargazing?
- It has some of the darkest skies on earth, which is why the country's largest telescopes are at Sutherland. On a moonless night the Milky Way is bright enough to cast a shadow. Aim for the week around new moon, and check whether your stay has a telescope or simply a good dark deck.