Travel in the Karoo Archives - Arid Areas Research and Development

William Gill of Somerset East: Doctor and botanist

Way back in the mid-1700s, a medical doctor, William Gill, came to practice in Somerset East; he turned his attention to botany and in time a major Eastern Cape college was established in that town and named Gill College in his honour. © Rose’s Roundup, April 2012. To subscribe to Rose’s Roundup, contact Rose Willis…

Dust to dust in the Karoo: 1900

“The dust bin of creation” was Author Julian Ralph’s opinion of the Karoo. In Towards Pretoria, his account of the Anglo-Boer War, he describes the intense heat and the air that was “as full of dust as London’s is of smoke”. He said: “Our throats are dry and caked with dust. The ground is loose…

Hospitality on remote Karoo farms: 1835

In the mid-1800s, farmers of the hinterland were said to be “hospitable to a fault.” They loved nothing more than endless talk over a pipe and mug of coffee, writes Eric Anderson Walker in The Great Trek. These farmers were related to the people of the Cape Town Peninsula by blood or marriage, but they…

Robert Grey’s arduous travels in the Karoo: 1848

In 1848, Robert Grey, the first Bishop of Cape Town almost frightened his wife, Sophy, to death with tales of his travels “through the waterless Karoo.” In one of his letters he wrote: “there was in fact no “road”, not even a tract through the arid wilderness and, to save the exhausted horses we many…

Travel and hotels in the Karoo, circa 1870

The arid plains of Africa did not impress Melton Prior, war correspondent for the Illustrated London News. From 1870 to 1905, he seems to have covered every major war in the world, but he found South Africa’s rural scenery unbearable and disappointing. He found some of the accommodation on offer even worse. “Each day we…

Travelling through the Karoo in the 1940s

A South African policeman escorting refugees discovered there was much more to the Karoo than he’d been led to believe. During WWI, after the German forces were beaten in South West Africa, Sam Cowley was detailed to take some German refugees from Roberts Heights (Voortrekkerhoogte), outside Pretoria, to Cape Town, so that they could return…

The Ghost Wagon Of The Great Karoo: 1887

Several old South African maps show the region between Ceres and Beaufort West as the “spokeveld” (ghost region). It was said to be one of the most heavily haunted areas of South Africa. In 1887, Major Alfred Ellis of the West India Regiment documented a tale in South African Sketches which, he said, had been…

Frank Connock motoring through the Karoo: 1902

In 1902, Frank Connock bought a two cylinder Gladiator from Albert Atkey, learned to drive within hours and set off for Mafeking. He completed the 320 trip in a single day – an unprecedented in those days because few were willing to risk their expensive cars on South Africa’s appalling roads. In 1907, Frank shot…

The rise and fall of ox-wagons

Transport riders evolved to serve the needs of the developing hinterland towns and vanished with the coming of the rail. These men brought wagon loads of supplies from the coast to inland destinations, using traditional ox wagons, which carried about 1 800 kg. These soon became was too small and in 1860 a new transport…

Travelling in the 1700s: Carl Peter Thurnberg and Francois Masson

Adventurous men were drawn to the vast South African interior, but they soon discovered exploring was not easy. Water was the limiting factor and so the map became littered with names indicative of the drought and hardships of travelling. Towards the Sandveld (itself an unfriendly name) lay Knersvlakte (gnashing of teeth) then there was the…