Joburg → Kalahari Desert return (out via Kuruman · back via Kimberley)
Here are the 8 stories you’ll meet on this journey. The history, culture and nature commentary narrated by the GPS audio guide can be read here in advance.
Kalahari safari preparation briefing
There are no shops in the Kgalagadi — stock up in UpingtonBriefing before you set off
This route is safe and malaria-free, but Kgalagadi National Park itself is a fully self-catering area with almost no shops. So before entering the park, be sure to do a last big shop at Kalahari Spar or Woolworths in Upington. The park opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 7 p.m. every day, and arriving at camp after that can mean a fine. On the gravel riverbed roads the rule is not to exceed 50 km/h, and getting out of your vehicle is strictly forbidden except at designated picnic spots. Note too that Mata-Mata camp at the western end runs on solar power only and has no mobile signal. Finally, the wilderness camps are often fully booked months — even a year — ahead, so we recommend booking as early as possible.
Kuruman
A spring gushing 20 million litres a day in the middle of the desert
In contrast to the dry landscape at the edge of the Kalahari, Kuruman has a natural spring that gushes about 20 million litres of water a day. Nicknamed ‘the Eye’, this spring has long served as a lifeline in the middle of the desert for people and animals alike.
The missionary who came to the desert to translate the Bible
In the 19th century the Scottish missionary Robert Moffat settled in this remote desert town and worked on translating the Bible into Setswana. Few missionaries from Europe came to such a remote place and devoted their whole lives to it, and his work is later regarded as a key turning point in the history of missions in southern Africa.
Upington
Vineyards grown from river water in the middle of the desert
The land around us here is actually the Kalahari Desert. But in the 19th century, settlers began large-scale irrigated farming with water drawn from the Orange River, and vineyards appeared. A single river created a farming settlement in the middle of the desert, and today the area remains the heart of South Africa’s raisin production. Don’t forget to do your last big shop here before entering the park.
Kgalagadi National Park
The first park to erase a national border
The park you’re entering was originally two parks managed separately by South Africa and Botswana: South Africa’s Kalahari Gemsbok National Park and Botswana’s Gemsbok National Park. In 2000 the two were merged into Africa’s first official transfrontier park. The animals had always roamed the desert without caring about borders — people simply acknowledged that reality at last and merged the two countries’ park management into one.
No Big Five, but plenty of lions
The Kgalagadi has no elephants, rhinos or buffalo, so it doesn’t count as a ‘Big Five’ park. Yet for sightings of black-maned Kalahari lions and cheetahs, its reputation is higher than Kruger’s. If, on the Nossob riverbed we’re passing, you see a black-maned male lion standing atop a red dune, that’s the scene that defines this park.
Kimberley
The world’s largest hand-dug hole, dug by tens of thousands
The hole you’re looking at is 215 metres deep — and all of it was dug by people with picks and shovels. When diamonds were discovered in 1871, tens of thousands of prospectors poured in and dug down without any heavy machinery, using only picks and shovels. Each person’s small swings of the pick added up to the largest hand-dug hole in the world. Funnily enough, it’s the exact opposite of the natural sinkhole at Kuruman we passed on the way out — this one was made entirely by human hands.
A global diamond empire that began in this hole
Cecil Rhodes founded De Beers by buying up the diamond-mining rights here in Kimberley. The company went on to become a giant that dominated the world diamond market for more than a century — and it all began in a hole in this small city.
Drive this road yourself
Tell us your dates and group size, and we’ll recommend a 4×4 camper and travel preparations tailored to this route.