Crusing the Karoo

August is full of travel for Alice and I... good thing, because the weather seems to be pretty terrible in August- the howling PE wind is driving us crazy! Last week we had a long weekend for Women’s Day, so Alice and I decided to take a road trip through the Karoo. The Karoo is a desert/farm area inland of the southwest coast. We knew there wasn’t much to “do” in the Karoo, but we had heard a lot about this area and thought we’d check it out. The Karoo is known for having really extreme weather patterns- freezing in the winter, and terribly hot in the summer. We were prepared to freeze! Fortunately, the weather turned out to be pretty moderate. We started by driving north of PE to a small town called Cradock. We arrived in the evening and spent the night in a cute B&B there. This was our first real experience in a truly Afrikaans area, and the language barrier was bigger than we thought! The Karoo (and most rural, farming areas in the country) speak primarily Afrikaans. Most people in the country can speak some Afrikaans, even if it isn’t their home language, so suddenly English wasn’t such an easy medium of communication.

Our B&B

The next day was spent in Mountain Zebra National Park just outside of Cradock. We didn’t know there was such a thing as a mountain zebra, but we read about the difference between mountain and traditional zebras as we drove through the vast landscape. It was a very different kind of scenery to Londolozi in Kruger where I had been with my family last month, but it was beautiful in a different way. We spent the afternoon with Wildebeasts, Ostriches, Zebras, and Kudus before heading off to Middleburg.

Or at least our plan was to stop in Middleburg… That was until we got there and realized what a sad, deserted town Middleburg was. We had been warned of this at our B&B in Cradock (the owner was laughing at us for making it a stop on our trip), but we figured it couldn’t be that bad. Wrong. It was awful. We stopped to get Cokes and use the restroom and decided that one stop was enough in that town, so we moved on to our next destination, Graaff-Reinet.

Graaff from the Valley of Desolation

Because we skipped Middleburg, we got to spend 3 nights in Graaff which we ended up being especially grateful for! Graaff was a cute little town surrounded on 3 sides by mountains. The streets were peppered with shops and restaurants and full of people walking around. We spent the next 3 days exploring the shops and restaurants, going on morning runs and hiking through the Valley of Desolation. On Saturday, we drove into a nearby artist-colony town called Nieu Bethesda for the afternoon. This town is known for the Owl House, a house that has essentially been transformed into a canvas for artwork by a semi crazy lady in the 20s? Her backyard is full of unique sculptures, many of which include owls. Inside, she because obsessed with colour, and transformed many of her windows and walls into a palate of colours.

The Owl House

A fun little brewery we found in Nieu Bethesda

The beer tap!

After a few great days in Graaff we were back to PE. This was supposed to be an easy, straightforward drive, until we were about 60ks outside of any city and the gas light came on. Oops. Insert panic here. The next 35 minutes were anxiety filled as we tried to figure out if we should be driving slow or fast, checked google maps religiously on our phones as if it would make a gas station magically appear, and texted my boyfriend Andrew where we were in case we ran out of gas and lost cell reception and needed a ride. Magically, we made it the whole 60ks and danced in celebration when we finally saw a gas station in the horizon. Lesson learned, fill up early and often when driving in rural areas. It made for an adventurous morning to say the least.