Cape Town → Namaqualand (wildflowers) → Namib Desert (red dunes) return
Here are the 18 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.
Cape Town
Sarah Baartman — the Slave Lodge
The building you’re passing now is a museum called the Slave Lodge today, but it was originally the quarters where enslaved people lived. Inside is the story of a woman named Sarah Baartman — a story that’s hard to forget once you’ve heard it. Sarah was a Khoikhoi woman born near the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape. While she was working as a servant in Cape Town, an Englishman and a Cape Town merchant approached her in 1810, luring her with the promise that she could make a lot of money in London. So she crossed the Atlantic and was put on display on London’s Piccadilly under the name ‘the Hottentot Venus’. Her body shape, which looked unfamiliar to Europeans of the time, was turned into a spectacle. British abolitionists took her case to court to try to free her, but — very likely under pressure — she told the court she had come of her own free will, and so she was never released. In 1814 she was sold to France, where she was exhibited in a similar way in Paris and even became a subject of study for Georges Cuvier, the most celebrated naturalist of the day. Then in 1815, at only about twenty-five, she died in Paris — and Cuvier dissected her body and preserved her brain and genitals as specimens. Those specimens stayed on display at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris until 1974, almost 160 years after her death. She was finally brought home and buried in 2002, after Nelson Mandela’s government formally asked the French government to return her. And, strikingly, the day of her homecoming ceremony fell on South Africa’s Women’s Day — a coincidence that stays with you once you know it.
Camissa — the hidden river beneath the city
Picture this for a moment as you drive. Right now, beneath this city, a river called ‘Camissa’ is flowing. Cape Town wasn’t built here because of the stunning view of Table Mountain. The real reason was water. Fresh spring water ran down from the mountain, and the Khoikhoi called these streams ‘sweet water’ — Camissa. In 1652, when the Dutch East India Company was looking for a place to build a supply station for ships bound for Asia, it chose this spot precisely because of this water. And amazingly, more than 370 years later, the river hasn’t disappeared. It still flows through underground channels beneath the city — near Heritage Square you can even hear the water if you listen closely to the pavement. There are even walking tours that follow the river through Victorian-era tunnels. Beneath the forest of glittering buildings, the old river that gave birth to this city is still quietly flowing — the more you think about it, the more remarkable it is, isn’t it?
Van Riebeeck’s almond hedge — Kirstenbosch
Deep inside Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden you’ll come across what looks like an ordinary hedge of trees. But this hedge hides a story more than 360 years old. In 1660, Jan van Riebeeck, the first commander of the Cape settlement, planted a dense line of wild almond trees — the bitter kind — along the settlement’s boundary, saying it would stop Khoikhoi raids and cattle theft. It looked like a defensive hedge, but in reality it was the first policy of separation, meant to push the Khoikhoi outside the colony’s land. Remarkably, some of these trees have survived to this day — more than 360 years — and still stand inside Kirstenbosch. They’re preserved as South Africa’s oldest ‘living monument’. When you stroll through this beautiful garden and suddenly come across these old, gnarled trunks, knowing that they mark the very first scene of this country’s history of racial separation may make the view look a little different.
The Castle of Good Hope — a false surrender and the Grey Lady
That star-shaped fortress, the Castle of Good Hope, is the oldest surviving building in South Africa. The Dutch East India Company built it over 13 years, from 1666 to 1679. Beneath the fort there was once a dungeon where prisoners were held, and legend has it that a secret passage led from here to the harbour — perhaps used for smuggling or secret escapes. But the fort’s most famous story is something else: the ghost of the ‘Grey Lady’. Some say she was a woman executed in the dungeon; others say she was the mistress of a 19th-century commander. The interesting thing is that it doesn’t end as an old tale — there are records of night guards reporting sightings of her to this day. Inside this fortress, more than 350 years old, someone may be about to encounter the Grey Lady at this very moment.
The 1901 plague and Ndabeni
When people think of racial segregation in South Africa — apartheid — they usually think of 1948. But attempts to push people out of the city by race began much earlier. In 1901, bubonic plague broke out in Cape Town’s harbour. The real cause, as it later turned out, was rats that arrived on cargo ships — yet the authorities wrongly blamed Black dock workers as the source of infection. Using this as a pretext, they forcibly moved all the Black residents living in town to a new settlement called ‘Ndabeni’, near Maitland. This was the first case of the township segregation policy that would continue for decades. Apartheid officially began in 1948, so this happened a full 47 years earlier. A misunderstanding caused by rats brought this city’s history of racial separation forward by almost half a century.
District Six — demolished, and never rebuilt
That wide empty lot you can see out the window may look like land where construction simply stopped, but this was once Cape Town’s liveliest neighbourhood. It was called District Six — the most diverse place in the city, where Black, Coloured, Indian and Jewish residents all lived side by side. But in 1966 the government declared this land a ‘whites-only area’. Over the next 16 years, until 1982, some 60,000 residents were forcibly removed to the Cape Flats on the city’s outskirts, and every one of their homes and buildings was demolished. Here’s the twist: the forced removals drew such strong international condemnation that even the government didn’t dare announce the white housing it had planned for the empty land. So for decades the land has remained mostly empty. The bare landscape we’re looking at is itself a scar of that violence — and, at the same time, proof that the violence never fully succeeded. Today the District Six Museum keeps the story of that neighbourhood alive.
The convict ship ‘Neptune’ affair
In 1849, the British Empire planned to use the Cape Colony as a penal colony, just as it had done with Australia. So it sent convicts to Table Bay aboard the convict ship ‘Neptune’. But the plan ran into unexpected resistance from the people of Cape Town. Merchants refused as one to supply the ship, and workers blocked the convicts from even coming ashore. For five whole months, the Neptune sat stuck in the harbour, unable to unload. In the end the British government gave in, and the convicts on board were sent on to Australia. Historians regard this as the first mass civil resistance in the city’s history — the Empire’s plan was defeated without a single shot fired, simply by refusing to cooperate.
The Noon Gun on Signal Hill
Every day at noon, a single cannon shot rings out from this hill. It startles people hearing it for the first time, but this cannon isn’t a show for tourists. When it was first installed in 1806, it had just one purpose: to let every ship anchored in the harbour set its navigation clock precisely. Today we have GPS and smartphones, but back then there was nothing of the sort. So for the whole city and every ship in port, the sound of this cannon was the official time. And amazingly, the tradition has continued for more than 200 years without missing a single day. Even now, when noon comes, the cannon will fire from that hill without fail. One of the world’s oldest time-signal traditions is carrying on right before our eyes.
Springbok
The miners who came from Cornwall
Take a look at this dry desert area you’re passing through, around Springbok and Okiep. Today it looks like nothing but barren plains, but in the 19th century, when a copper-mining boom hit the area, it was a completely different scene. Skilled miners from Cornwall in England, whose families had mined for generations, came all the way to this desert on the other side of the world, nicknamed ‘Cousin Jacks’. After months at sea, they transplanted the mining techniques they knew straight into this unfamiliar land. And curiously, traces of them remain. Even today, some local family surnames reveal Cornish ancestry. The culture of an English country village was transplanted into the middle of an African desert. Quite a strange and fascinating combination when you think about it, isn’t it?
The vanished springbok migration
The name of this town, Springbok, actually comes from an antelope. Until the 19th century, a spectacle known as ‘trekbokking’ often unfolded in this area: herds of springbok hundreds of thousands strong crossing these plains over several days. The scale was said to be almost unimaginable. But you can’t see such migrations any more. As fences dividing farms went up everywhere and uncontrolled hunting continued, the spectacle vanished completely. All that’s left to us is a town named after the antelope. The tide of life that once filled the land now survives only in a place name.
Goegap Nature Reserve
A granite garden where animals lost to hunting have returned
The Goegap area was once land where antelope such as springbok and gemsbok had dwindled because of uncontrolled hunting. After it was declared a reserve in the 1970s, about 45 species of mammals re-established themselves on this dry land between the granite peaks. It’s a small but clear example of recovery: an ecosystem damaged by people, restored by people through protection.
The ‘half-human’ plant that always leans its head to the north
Here in Goegap, too, grows the ‘halfmens’ — the ‘half-human’ succulent found all over Namaqualand. According to Nama legend, it’s the form taken by people who fled their homeland to escape war and drought, and whom the gods, out of pity, turned half human and half plant. That’s why, it’s said, this plant always grows with its head leaning north, towards the homeland they lost.
Skilpad (Namaqua National Park)
One basin that turns the desert into a flower garden
Skilpad is a reserve set up by WWF in 1988 specifically to conserve Namaqualand’s floral kingdom. The reason it reliably puts on an especially spectacular flower display, even within Namaqualand, lies in its landform. Its basin shape traps the cold sea mist rolling in from the Atlantic, so it holds moisture far more reliably than elsewhere. Within an equally dry Namaqualand, this one basin is the secret behind the most dazzling carpet of flowers every year.
The desert with the most diverse plant life
It’s easy to assume deserts have little plant diversity, but this region is the opposite. Part of a unique biome called the ‘Succulent Karoo’, this land is counted as having the most diverse desert flora on Earth. Land that looks dry and barren actually holds more varied life than any other desert in the world.
Orange River border
Last chance to fill up before the borderPractical info
Soon you’ll cross the Orange River border between South Africa and Namibia at Vioolsdrif. Right after the border there’s a Shell station that accepts cards and also sells SIM cards. Here’s something important to remember: the next fuel stop is Ai-Ais, a full 118 kilometres further on, and it takes cash only and its supply is unreliable. So it’s safest to fill up as much as you can at this border station before setting off.
Sossusvlei
People lived even in the harshest desert
The desert outside your window is an extreme environment where it’s hard to find a single drop of water. Yet remarkably, people have lived even here. Tools and traces left by the San — often called Bushmen — are found all across this area. They adapted to this extremely dry desert and survived by storing and carrying water in a unique way: inside ostrich eggshells. On land we find tough even for a trip of a few days, people have lived for thousands of years by completely reshaping their way of life. Isn’t that remarkable?
‘Big Daddy’ and ‘Big Mama’
See that giant dune towering ahead? This dune, called ‘Big Daddy’, doesn’t actually have an official name on any map. It’s a nickname that travellers and guides passing through gave it, and it simply stuck. From the valley floor to the summit it rises more than 325 metres, making it one of the tallest dunes in the world. Climbing to the top through sand that swallows your feet isn’t easy, but once you’re up, a view awaits that rewards all the effort. From the summit you can look down on the whole of Deadvlei right beside it, spread out bright white like another planet.
Deadvlei
Trees that have not decayed in over 900 years
These trees that look burnt black weren’t actually burnt. They’re camel thorn trees that grew here some 600 to 900 years ago, when a river still flowed. When the dunes blocked the river the trees dried out and died, but the area is so dry that not even the fungi or bacteria that break down wood can survive. So even though they died nearly a thousand years ago, even their bark remains intact.
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.