North of the mountains the country opens into the Great Karoo: dead-straight roads to the horizon, flat-topped koppies, windpumps, and a silence you can hear. Graaff-Reinet — South Africa's fourth-oldest town, ringed by the Camdeboo National Park — is its most beautiful base.
This is distance riding in its purest form. From Graaff-Reinet you climb to the Valley of Desolation for one of the great viewpoints in Africa, then choose a compass bearing: every gravel road out of town runs empty for hours, through sheep country, past Nieu-Bethesda and its owl house, under skies that make you feel usefully small. The Karoo is now firmly on the world gravel map — the Gravel Burn stage race crosses exactly this country — but ridden at journey pace it gives you something a race never can: time.
Our Great Karoo journeys are privately crafted — routes, farmstays and support built around your group. Not for everyone, which is exactly why it is for some.