Finding Heaven In The Bo-Karoo

South Africa has many remote areas where almost every road is a back road. Come on a detour from the Free State to the Bo-Karoo and meet a rock musician turned farmer, a Yorkie named Gucci and find a little slice of heaven.

- Willem Van Der Berg

I first stumbled upon heaven about seven years ago. A friend and I had visited Augrabies Falls National Park and we were going home to Bloemfontein. Somewhere between Verneukpan and Carnarvon, in the

so-called Bo-Karoo, we came across a road. We turned off. As the road narrowed, the clouds above us grew heavy. We drove into a kloof where a drizzle sifted down and we splashed our way through streams. The fresh scent of wet scrubland filled my nose.

At a junction a road sign lay on the ground. “Perdekloof” it read. There was another message too, scratched into the corner of the sign by someone who had passed by before us: “Baby jour in heven”.

It’s a sunny day in August and I’m going back to heaven. I’ll start in Bloemfontein and drive to Mokala National Park, then go via Douglas and along the Orange River to Prieska. I’ll take back roads to Verneukpan and Williston and on to Perdekloof. Then I’ll head home via Carnarvon, Vosburg, Strydenburg, Luckhoff and Jagersfontein.

Early in the afternoon I pitch my tent in Motswedi Camp in Mokala National Park and drive out into the veld. Mokala is not the kind of park where you look for the Big Five. What you find here is peace. Park under a camel thorn tree with a view west and wind down your windows. Listen to sociable weavers and hornbills chattering and watch as a giraffe sidles up to see what’s going on. If you’re lucky, the sunset will turn the whole sky red.

Around midnight something sniffs around my tent. There are no big predators in Mokala that would make a meal of me, but I also don’t want a buffalo to stomp on me. I roll up like a pangolin and wait for it to leave. The next morning, there’s kudu spoor around my tent.