Filled By The Falls

Called ‘the place of great noise’ by the local Nama people, Augrabies – in the Northern Cape – is beautiful for the raging waterfall and the fragile surrounding landscape.

- Keri Harvey

In flood, Augrabies is raw power. Standing on the viewing deck overlooking the falls, water thundering down before you, spray like soaking the rain, your body responds viscerally to the sheer force of water plunging into the gorge below. The sound is deafening and the atmosphere is both chaotic and invigorating. Confusing too, since the setting is so bone-dry and arid. So much water and so much dust together is an unusual marriage.

The original Khoikhoi inhabitants of the area called the falls Ankoerebis, which somehow morphed into Augrabies – and the name has stuck. This is one of Africa’s great waterfalls, created by a narrowing in the Orange River, which tumbles into a rugged gorge almost 60m below. Augrabies is the sixth largest waterfall in the world and the reason for the proclamation of Augrabies Falls National Park in 1966. When in flood, Augrabies boasts 19 separate waterfalls, among them the Bridal Veil and Angel falls.

Mystery and magic surround the 600 million-year-old waterfall. Local people say it has divine qualities, which has, in turn, inspired myths and legends. One tale explains that a strange water monkey lives at the base of the falls; other talks of a creature with a diamond in its forehead living under the falls. Alluvial diamonds are plentiful in the Orange River, so there’s also a local belief that the biggest cache of diamonds on earth lies in the swirling pool at the base of the falls, but the constant deluge of water prevents further investigation.