Imagine the Richtersveld Mountain Desert, but distilled into a space ten times smaller … that is Goegap. It is a nature reserve probably unknown to 90% of South Africans, and is situated a few kilometres from Springbok, a town teetering on the beautiful edge of nowhere.
This is everyman’s desert, if you will: big enough to feel vast, small enough not to be scary. Quiver trees spike the powder-blue Bushmanland sky, with haphazard rock stacks rucking up from amber plains. Warlord gemsbok hold sway upon these sandy swathes, and amid rugged jumbles of boulders, some the size of two-up-two-down apartment blocks, you might happen upon Hartmann’s mountain zebra or klipspringer.
By Jacques Marais
One of the most popular flower destinations in Springbok, Northern Cape is the Goegap Nature Reserve, a conservation area covering about 15 ...