I have loved the Karoo since the first time I drove through it. I was 11 and en route to Cape Town from Johannesburg with my family. We had been up and down the N1 between Johannesburg and Durban at least fifty times but now we were going across country for the very first time and that's a pretty big deal when you’re 11.
That was 22 years ago but even then I could fully appreciate its desert landscape, 30 to 40 degree temperatures (even after dark), and the perfect, quaint little Karoo cottages that all of its small towns are famous for, my most favourite being Graaff-Reinet. Spending a night in Graaff-Reinet always added an extra hour onto the trip, towns like Colesburg or Beaufort West are more en route, but it was always worth it and passing through became a tradition.
I wrote about a mini road trip to the Karoo, where I was fortunate enough to spend time at the historical Drostdy Hotel, before going on to Samara Private Game Reserve. Samara Private Game Reserve is a passionate conservation undertaking, the leader in its area and a catalyst for change in the Great Karoo region of South Africa.
See all the photographs from the trip and read more here.
Samara Private Game Reserve, Karoo, South Africa. Photograph by Adriaan Louw.