Property in Northern Cape - ERA Real Estate

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It is the isolation and space of the Northern Cape that give this province its special beauty.

Although it is sparsely populated and the long distances hard going for travellers the Northern Cape incorporates the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, arguably southern Africa’s most spectacular game reserve. The park forms part of the bigger Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park that links it with Botswana’s Kalahari National Park. It is well stocked with all the major game including, of course, the “Big Five.”

One of the great tragedies unfolding in the region during the past 200 years has been the slow demise of the Bushmen tribes, many of whom now live in poverty in resettled towns cut off from the wilderness that has always been their home. Upington, the last reasonably sized stopover before the long road into the Kalahari, is the only major urban centre in the most northerly part of the province. It acts as a gateway into the desert.

The lifeblood of the Northern Cape is the Orange River that flows from the Lesotho Highlands to the Atlantic Ocean forming South Africa’s northern border with Namibia. The deep brown river also separates the Great Karoo eco system from the sand dunes of the Kalahari Desert and sustains a green strip of croplands in an otherwise brown wilderness.

A quieter, albeit slightly longer, route from Johannesburg to Cape Town runs through the Northern Cape’s provincial capital, Kimberley, known worldwide as the heart of South Africa’s diamond industry. It was here at the end of the 19th century that Cecil John Rhodes and his great rival Barney Barnato made their fortunes buying and consolidating diamond concessions.