Northern Cape

Welcome to the African safari of your childhood daydreams. Packs of entertaining meerkats scurry across the sand, antelopes wander the dry river beds munching on thorny vegetation, and as dusk nears the implausibly large sun dips behind orange and white sand dunes leaving behind a star-filled sky. Best of all though are the predator sightings: prides of black-maned lions relaxing in the shade, spotted hyenas roaming in pairs and cheetahs prowling for their dinner.

The centrepiece of this park is the 56m-high waterfall created when the Gariep (Orange) River thunders through a ravine. The nearby Bridal Veil Falls drop 75m and most people simply follow the boardwalks past the falls and leave shortly afterwards, but there is plenty more to explore. Look out for dassies (cute, furry creatures that look like outsized gerbils) hopping across the rocks, tackle a day hike or take a wildlife drive deeper into the park.

A land of immense skies and stark countryside, rugged Namakwa and the Hantam Karoo are truly South Africa’s Wild West. The roads seemingly stretch forever through vast, empty spaces, and scorching days lead to dramatically quiet and still nights, when the stars appear bigger and brighter than anywhere else. From exploring the misty shipwrecked diamond coastline on the country’s far western edge to four-wheel driving through the Mars-like landscape of remote |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, the pleasures here are simple yet flabbergasting.

Namakwa and the Hantam Karoo are proficient magicians, who perform their favourite trick each spring, shaking off winter’s bite with an explosion of colour and covering the sunbaked desert in a spectacular, multihued wildflower blanket. The name Hantam actually means 'mountain where the red edible flowers bloom' in Khoi-Khoi. The Namakwa region takes its name from the Nama (also known as Namkwa or Namaqua, which means ‘Nama people’), a Khoekhoen tribe.

South Africa’s remotest national park presents a barren but undeniably striking landscape filled with weird rock formations and sandy moonscapes dotted with otherworldly trees. This transfrontier park, which straddles the South Africa-Namibia border, is not so much a place for wildlife viewing but for demanding hikes, adventurous drives and survivalist fun. The park is accessible by 4WD only and you need to be completely self-sufficient once you venture past the park gates.

Surrounded by the Roggeveld Mountains, Sutherland is an attractive Karoo dorp (village) with sandstone houses, a 19th-century church and gravel side streets. Perched at about 1500m above sea level, it’s the coldest place in South Africa and snow carpets the ground every year. The clear skies combined with the minimal light pollution found in Sutherland’s remote position make the area perfect for stargazing. The boffins agree: SALT (Southern African Large Telescope), the southern hemisphere’s largest single optical telescope, is 14km east of town.

Other than stargazing, there's a 145km self-drive botanical tour, covering both the Roggeveld and lower Tankwa Karoo. The area enjoys an annual wildflower bloom similar to the one that carpets nearby Namakwa.