It may be some 3 000km, depending on your route, but it is well worth your time and effort to visit some of the more far-flung places in South Africa.
From right up in the north, eastwards and then rounding off your trip in Cape Town.
Fortunately, you will be driving on some of the world’s best roads, South Africa’s national road network, lovingly built and maintained by SANRAL.
Start way up north at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers, near the border with Botswana and Zimbabwe. It is the site of a sophisticated Iron Age society, which traded with Arabia and Asia, a place of advanced metal working and the earliest confirmation of social stratification. It is called Mapungubwe.
Some palace sites and two city sites remain virtually intact. Climate change seriously damaged agricultural activities and the society was scattered. At its height, the city state was the largest kingdom on the African subcontinent.
Next, go to the far north of the Kruger National Park in the Makuleke region, where the largest fever tree forest in the Southern Hemisphere can be found.
The fever tree’s trunk is lime green, covered with fine yellow dust, straight and smooth, and it peels off in thin layers. From September to December, it sports bright yellow flower balls, followed by brown pods.
There are literally thousands of these trees.
Both humans and animals find the fever tree useful – humans for treating eye infections and malaria, while elephants eat the young branches and leaves, the flowers attract birds, butterflies and bees, baboons and monkeys like the nutritious gum and giraffes eat the pods.
Next, south and then east near St Lucia on the KwaZulu-Natal coast, where the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is. It spans close to 300km of the coastline, up to the Mozambican border. It is South Africa’s third-largest protected area.
It is a World Heritage Site because of its rich biodiversity, unique ecosystems and natural beauty ranging from wetlands to coral reefs; sandy beaches to subtropical dune forests and savannas. It is home to buffalo, elephants, black and white rhino, dolphins, whales and marine turtles, among others.
Next, further south, just before the
border with the Eastern Cape, is the world’s smallest desert, where SANRAL has just erected a protective fence to stop animals from wandering onto the N2. Known as the Red Desert, it is only 200m in diameter and resembles the Arizona Desert in the US.
It's called the Red Desert because of the colour of its sand. The underlying soil has a high iron content, which is not particularly friendly for plants.
The Red Desert Nature Reserve has several habitats, houses small animals, 480 plant and 200 bird species.
Next, even further south, go right down to Cape Town to visit the Good Hope Castle, which was built
in the late 1600s by the Dutch East India Company. It is the oldest remaining building of that era. Take in the daily Key Ceremony, visit the military museum, art collection, ramparts and dungeons.
The entrance ticket also gives access to the Iziko Museums of Cape Town and its collection from the same period of paintings, furnishings and ceramics, as well as other museums on the city outside the castle itself.
From the far north, right along the entire length of the coast to the southern tip of Africa, travel is on the well-maintained SANRAL roads – mostly the N2.
