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I have no idea where this year is going and circumstances just aren’t allowing me to get out and about like I previously did. Luckily, I have a lot of material to share from previous trips. Doesn’t mean I’m not working, as sharing content isn’t what pays the bills.

Please check out the Karoo Heartland website and if you like what you see and know somebody with a tourism product in the EC Karoo region, please encourage them to sign up and get listed.

May the 4th be with you

Jonker

This month, we look at:

• Learn about the Karoo Origins Fossil Centre in Graaff-Reinet

• Walk the magnificent Alexandria Hiking Trail

• Go Cheetah tracking in the Mountain Zebra National Park

• The historic stone culverts of the Storms River Pass

• Karoo Heartland Routes Recommendations

If there is something that you would like to see featured in our monthly travel mailer or have any suggestions, please drop us an email at jonker@fireflyafrica.co.za

Karoo Origins Fossil Centre

The Karoo Origins – The Fossil Centre in Graaff-Reinet is a remarkable palaeontological exhibition centre positioned in the Gem of the Karoo.

The centre features all the fossils from the remarkable Rubidge Collection, comprising more than 850 fossil skulls. A large dynamic diorama showcases life-size reconstructions of the prehistoric animals that once roamed the Karoo, giving visitors an appreciation of the size and diversity of early life in the Graaff-Reinet area.

Karoo Origins is a living centre actively engaged in research on the fossils and rocks of the Karoo. Video footage demonstrates palaeontologists collecting and excavating fossils in the Karoo. Visitors are also provided the opportunity to watch a technician exposing fossils from the surrounding rock, all part of the Centre’s research programme.

The magnificent Alexandria Hiking Trail

Hiking the two-day Alexandria Hiking Trail in the Addo Elephant National Park is an unforgettable experience that leads the hiker through three distinct environments, ranging from forest to coastal dunes to seashore. No other trail in the country can boast this diversity, as you clamber up the desert-like dunes and stand aloft cliffs crumbling into the sea, trek through high forest, and along spectacular beaches.

This two-day, 36-kilometre circular hiking trail is perfect for a weekend getaway and boasts desert-like dunes, lush indigenous forest, dune cliffs, and spectacular, untouched beaches. The Alexandria hiking trail can accommodate a maximum of 12 people and a minimum of 3 people. The total distance of the circular route is 36 km, with day 1 covering 18.5km and day 2 covering 13.5km.

The Langebos Huts, situated within the forest, are the base huts for the trail and it is recommended that hikers stay at these huts the night before leaving for the first day.

The Woody Cape Hut is situated at the end of the first day’s hike, overlooking the sea and Bird Island.

Leon Janse van Rensburg

Cheetah tracking in the

Mountain Zebra National Park

The cheetah tracking experience in Mountain Zebra National Park is one of South Africa’s most unique and intimate wildlife encounters, offering visitors the rare opportunity to follow wild cheetahs on foot in a rugged Karoo landscape.

Guided by expert rangers, guests set out in the early morning using tracking equipment to locate collared wild cheetahs. Once found, you carefully approach on foot, creating a thrilling, up-close encounter in their natural habitat.

Lasting around 3 to 4 hours and limited to small groups, the experience is both intimate and educational, with fascinating insights into cheetah behaviour and conservation along the way.

It’s not just a sighting, it’s a true wilderness adventure where the journey is as exciting as the moment you finally lock eyes with one of Africa’s most iconic predators.

The culverts of the Storms River Pass

When Thomas Bain built the passes on the Garden Route between the 1840s and 1870s,  technology was limited to compasses, theodolites, telescopes and gunpowder. The key component was manpower, which was supplied through the use of convict labour.

Bain followed the ancient elephant trails through the Storms River gorge to plan and build the Storms River Pass. Cuttings had to be dug into the rock face and the rock and soil had to be transported away by wheelbarrow. l see some of these culverts doing what they were built for.

Where waterways had to be built under the roadway, each rock used to build these waterways had to be chiselled into shape by hand.

Travelling down the pass road, you can still see some of these culverts doing what they were built for.

Karoo Heartland Routes recommend: