Trans Karoo MTB 1.1 | Page 12

Overview Of The Northern Cape

The Northern Cape is a land of many diverse cultures, of frontier history and brave missionaries. It also has countless challenges for the adrenaline junkies, hikers, hunters and 4×4 adventurers. It has impressive parks with endless game and some of the most unique flora in the world.

Much of life and adventure is dependent on the sweeping tide of the Orange River, a 2 000km stretch of natural magnificence dubbed the !Garib (great river) by the Khoisan. With constant ribbons of green along its banks that contrast with the arid surrounds, at some places it can be a 6km-wide, impassable torrent and at others scarcely a stream.

The Kalahari Desert can be likened to a colossal sweeping river of another kind. Its’ red shifting sands that once rippled and moved are now mostly stable and home to hundreds of diverse species of flora and fauna.

A place of vastness and silence, the KgalagadiTransfrontier Park (bigger than many countries) extends across much of the Kalahari. Every now and again the unmistakable cry of African fish eagle rings out, or the gut-wrenching roar of a black maned Kalahari Lion carries across the landscape.

The openness continues to the vast koppie-strewn plains of the Karoo and Namakwa where hardy succulents complementsweet grasses and the clean, clear air is bedecked with stars at night.

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