RICHTERSVELD
The /Ai/Ais-Richtersveld Transfrontier Park can play mind games with you. Some people say you definitely need a 4x4, others say your Nissan Micra will get you to Kokerboomkloof. We drove every road with a GPS and a notebook – and visited every campsite –
We drove every road and visited every campsite in one of South Africa’s most remote national parks.
It’s a cliché but true: The Richtersveld is a harsh place. The roads are gravel and they’re full of twists and turns. You drive pass after pass, interrupted by sandy plains. In summer it’s blistering hot and in winter the cold seeps in as soon as the sun disappears behind those pointy mountains called the Vyf Susters. The Orange River cuts through it all: a green avenue that brings relief to the arid landscape. If you walk away from the river – even for just a few metres – you can’t believe that anything can survive, let alone thrive. Yet the Richtersveld teems with life. The biodiversity of South Africa’s only mountainous desert is astonishing. More than 4 000 plant species grow here and almost half of them are endemic. Dassies, kudus and leopards live in the hills. People also somehow manage to carve out an existence. The big-picture landscapes are spectacular, but you also have to look closely to experience the true beauty of the place. At night, before the moon rises, the Milky Way hangs so low that you’ll feel like you can reach up and pluck a star.
Getting there – slowly
The gravel road starts long before you reach the national park. The tar ends at Alexander Bay and you’ll soon pass signs for places like Baken, Sanddrif, Brandkaros and Grootderm. The residents of these villages work on the diamond mines, which is also the reason why the roads in the area are in a relatively good condition. About 12 km outside Kuboes, the road turns north and my wife Marilize and I start to get a taste of what lies ahead. You don’t need a 4x4 here but your Micra will take a beating. Loose stones and potholes make driving difficult, especially when an easterly wind chases sandstorms your way. It’s already late in the afternoon when we reach the park gate 25 km later. The propeller of a wind-powered generator whistles as it tries to keep up with the wind. The guard at the gate runs over, holding the visitor’s book over his face to shield him from the sand. You don’t pay your park fees here – the guard only controls access. He lets the office in Sendelingsdrift know we’re on our way. “Don’t worry about the wind – it blows every afternoon,” he says. “It will die down soon.” He’s right: About 20 km further we arrive at a wind-still Sendelingsdrift. The place has a strange feel to it. It’s a border post, but there isn’t a bridge across the river, only a pont. We didn’t see much life on the way in, but Sendelingsdrift has a café and a filling station. Between the houses there are green lawns and big trees. In the desert it really helps to live next to the Orange River! The SANParks office is built in the style of an old fort overlooking the pont. I ask about the kind of vehicles that are allowed in the park. Usually when I ask this question, the reply has something to do with low range. Not today: The official is more concerned that we’ll overheat. “Do you have aircon?” he asks. November is not the best time of year for a visit. We spend the night in a chalet with a view of the river. There’s air conditioning and cricket on TV. The only drama is when a vervet monkey makes off with a bag of rusks the next morning as we’re having breakfast on the stoep.
We drive out of Sendelingsdrift and into the park, passing the campsite along the way. The first few kilometres take us past another mine, but once we’re over Halfmens Pass I start to get that wilderness feel. According to folklore, there was a time when the Nama people, who lived to the north of the Orange River, banished their conquered enemies south into the Richtersveld. Longing for their home, the conquered people gazed north forlornly and eventually turned into plants. This is how one of the Richtersveld’s most unique endemic plants got the name of “halfmens” or “half person”. Look at the leaf stems of the halfmens plants ( Pachypodium namaquanum) growing on the pass – they always face north. The myth of the halfmens is similar to the story of Lot’s wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at Sodom. That’s not the only thing that reminds me of the Bible. Deeper into the park, near Tatasberg, the landscape looks like the pictures in the illustrated Bible I had as a child, specifically the desert plains where Jesus wandered for 40 days
while the devil tried to tempt Him. It’s so hot that the devil would feel at home. On the other side of Halfmens Pass, just 150 m off the road, you can even see the Hand of God – a strange indentation in a rock that looks like an oversized handprint.
Down by the river
The start of Akkedis Pass is about 5 km from the Hand of God, but I struggle to tell where this pass ends and the next one – Penkop Pass – begins. The road is steep and rocky but our 4x4 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport crawls along smoothly. I don’t even have to touch the lowrange button. After the passes, the terrain levels out as you drive across the Koeroegab Plains to De Hoop on the banks of the Orange River. The last few kilometres go through a kloof with ankle-deep puddles of water in places, where a natural spring has seeped into the sand. If you visit in the early morning – and you’re quiet – you can sometimes see animals drinking here. At the river, I turn left instead of right and soon realise I’m lost. Eventually I see a column of smoke rising from a herder’s outpost and head there to ask for directions. The man at the post doesn’t say a word. He just lifts his arm and points upriver. ( Herders are allowed to graze their animals in the park. See the sidebar on page 42 – Ed.) At De Hoop, Marilize and I don’t set up camp right away. We first head down to the river to cool off. We’re not the only ones trying to escape the heat – on the opposite bank, a troop of Namibian baboons are drinking water. Some of them munch on river grass and others sit in the river like it’s a Jacuzzi. Only their heads are sticking out. I pitch our tent when the temperature starts to drop. Nearby, other campers are fishing in front of their riverside stand. The Orange River in the Richtersveld is a world-renowned fly-fishing destination for large- and smallmouth yellowfish. There are also catfish, barbel and enormous carp lurking in the depths. After sunset, the nightlife picks up. Baboons bark from across the river and a solifuge arrives, which chases after Marilize. After I manage to calm her down, we turn off the lights and look at the stars. There’s no moon and it doesn’t take long before we see satellites and shooting stars streaking across the black. Fireflies light up and start patrolling the riverbank. It’s magical. The next morning, we discover that our tent was home to some overnight guests. We find a few small scorpions under the groundsheet and spiders the size of R5 coins between the tent and the flysheet. Luckily the resident African pied wagtails come to our aid: As soon as a spider is shaken out, the birds swoop in and eat it for breakfast. Don’t drive the river road between De Hoop and Tatasberg Wilderness Camp in anything less than a 4x4 with low range. The sand is deep and there are rocks hiding in places. Be careful even if you’re in a 4x4, especially if you’re towing a trailer. By the time we reach the wilderness camp, the Pajero says it’s 46° C outside. There’s a broken rain gauge in the parking area. I wonder when last they took a reading here…
Passes and valleys
Two biomes meet in the northern part of the Northern Cape: succulent Karoo, like Namaqualand, and desert, like southern Namibia. The line that separates these two biomes runs right through the Richtersveld. If you travel from north to south via the Maerpoort or Domorogh passes, you can actually watch the landscape changing through your windscreen. If you’re travelling in a 4x2 and you want to get from De Hoop to Tatasberg – a boulderstrewn inselberg on a sandy plain – the quickest and easiest route is via Maerpoort Pass. If you have a 4x4 and feel like a challenging detour, tackle Domorogh Pass. The views from the 4x4 pass are amazing and there are lots of places to pull over and gawk. (Don’t worry: You’re not missing out if you have a 4x2 because the best views are still to come.) Springbokvlakte is the name of a vast open plain in the eastern section of the park. There’s grass here after rain, but at the moment it’s just sand. You can drive across the plain, but we follow the signs to Kokerboomkloof instead, into the hills. Along the way we stop at the Tatasberg lookout point. Tatasberg is like a smaller version of Spitzkoppe in Namibia – it looks as if a giant abandoned his pile of building blocks. From the lookout point, there’s also a view of the kloof north of Tatasberg. If you shout on a windless day, you’ll hear your voice echoing back from down the ravine. But the wind is too strong today so we move on.
About 3 km further we steer the nose of the Pajero to the edge of a precipice overlooking Springbokvlakte. We can see all the way to the vineyards at Aussenkehr on the opposite side of the Orange River. Who needs Domorogh Pass?
We follow the road past Die Toon – a rock formation that looks like a big toe – to Kokerboomkloof. It’s the only campsite in the park that’s not next to the river, but strangely it’s also where we see the most signs of life. Quiver trees and poison euphorbias grow against the sides of the kloof. We drive until the road comes to a dead end, where we’re greeted by a family of klipspringers. They shoot us wary looks before disappearing behind the boulders. The wind is gusting and I struggle to pitch the tent. Every stand has its own small ablution building. I find some shelter between this building and a nearby rock. As usual, the wind dies around sunset and the rocks turn to gold while the shadows of the quiver trees grow longer. I realise that I feel at home here, as far as you can go into the most remote national park in South Africa.
The weather is cool and misty on our final morning in the park. It’s the so-called “malmokkies” – the mist banks that roll in from the Atlantic Ocean, which sustain the vegetation. We cross the dry Gannakouriep River and travel to the base of Helskloof Pass, through the Noemeesberg and Paradysberg mountains. Near the summit of Helskloof, which crests the Vandersterrberg range, the mountain slopes are coloured red by a sea of Pearson’s aloes, which are found here and nowhere else on earth. The aloes are struggling in the drought, but like most plants in the Richtersveld, they know how to hang on. Then the road slopes down to the gate, where that wind generator is still singing in the breeze. The Richtersveld is not for everyone, but if you value solitude and true wilderness, you’ll also find yourself at home in this rocky desert.