Kariega to Graaf-Reinet

A long day’s drive across the Karoo, a land of semi-desert with fans irrigated by underground water and small muddy rivers.

Graaf-Reinet is the oldest town in the Eastern Cape and the sixth oldest in South Africa. The town was the centre of a short-lived republic in the late 18th century and a starting point for the Great Trek groups and furnished large numbers of the Voortrekkers between 1835 and 1842.

Our hotel, the Drostdy Hotel (a drostdy is the office or residence of a landdrost, a Boer magistrate in a rural district of South Africa prior to the establishment of British administration) has undergone many changes since construction began in 1804. Designed by Louis Thibault the building was completed in 1806 and serving as an official building it provided accommodation for such luminaries as Lord Charles Somerset and Sir Rufane Donkin. From 1819 the Old Drostdy was used as a residency for the local magistrate until 1847;

At the Valley of Desolation. sheer cliffs and precariously balanced columns of Dolerite rise 120 metres from the valley floor, against the timeless backdrop of the vast plains of the Camdeboo. This is the product of volcanic and erosive forces of nature over 100 million years

APOLOGIES for some poor photos taken from the coach either blurred or containing reflections which cannot be successfully edited out. I have included them to give context to the landscape of our trip.