Northern Cape
The vast Northern Cape, the largest and most disseminated of South Africa's provinces, is not an easy region to tackle as a visitor. From the lonely Atlantic West Coast to Kimberley, the provincial capital on its eastern border with the Free State, it covers over one-third of the nation's landmass - an area dominated by heat, aridity, empty spaces and huge traveling distances. The miracles of the desert are the main attraction - improbable swaths of flowers, diamonds dug from the dirt and wild animals roaming the dunes.
The most significant of these surprises is the Orange River, flowing from the Highlands of Lesotho to the Atlantic, where it marks South Africa's northern border with Namibia. The river, often with parched land stretching for hundreds of kilometers on either side, separates the Kalahari and Great Karoo - the two sparsely populated semi-desert ecosystems that fill the interior of the Northern Cape. It was by the Orange that diamonds were first discovered in the Vaal River's alluvial deposits and the nearby dry diggings around Kimberley that the story of diamonds would unfold in its most compelling detail.
Large irrigation schemes have created a stretch of incongruous green along the course of the Orange, principally around the isolated northern centre of Upington, the main town in the Kalahari region. A small but important town, Upington acts as a major gateway to the magnificent Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, one of the finest game-viewing parks in South Africa, and the smaller Augrabies Falls National Park, where the Orange plunges dramatically into a large granite gorge.
In Namaqualand, on the western side of the province, the presence of the Atlantic Ocean means that the land, while still harsh and dry, is subject to different influences. The brief winter rains here produce one of nature's truly glorious transformations, when in August and September the land is carpeted by a magnificent display of wild flowers.
Despite these impressive natural attractions, the most commonly visited part of the Northern Cape is its southeastern corner. This is where both of the two main routes between Johannesburg and Cape Town, the N1 and the N12, pass before meeting just northeast of Beaufort West in the Great Karoo. While the N12 provides a good opportunity to spend a day or so in Kimberley, neither route offers particularly inspiring scenery or sights; anyone hoping to see a cross-section of South Africa by driving between Johannesburg and Cape Town will find themselves hot, tired and rather disappointed.
A less obvious but more attractive option is to take the N14 from Johannesburg through Upington, passing the atmospheric old mission station at Kuruman, and on to Springbok and the main West Coast route (the N7) to Cape Town. This route is only 400 km longer than the N1 or N12 and, while it doesn't offer respite from long, empty landscapes, the sights on the way are more interesting; it also puts both the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and little visited Richtersveld National Park within striking distance.