The Karoo region in South Africa draws road trippers with its storied past and quirky sites during the traveling season. Visitors can explore legends from the 1950s wool boom, witness remnants of a Top Gear experiment in the Kalahari, and attend steam engine displays at Sandstone Estates. These elements combine to offer a fresh sense of adventure on open roads.
Travelers in the Karoo often start their journeys with detailed planning, using old maps to chart routes through remote areas. One typical itinerary heads toward Graaff-Reinet, evoking excitement as familiar landscapes appear renewed under summer skies.
The early 1950s wool boom transformed the lives of sheep farmers, enabling them to fund university education for their children, overseas shopping trips, and even second homesteads to skirt taxes. Fence wool—flecks left on wires after sheep rub against them—held immense value. A local legend recounts a farmer who collected enough to pay off a new Mercedes-Benz, receiving 200 pounds in change. Another tale, documented by historian Lawrence Green, involves a Vosburg sheep with apparent gold-plated teeth during a meal, sparking a brief gold rush that ended when the sheen proved to be mere tartar.
In the deep Kalahari near Noenieput, close to the Namibia border, an unusual spectacle occurred when the Top Gear team, led by Jeremy Clarkson, dropped a Volkswagen Beetle from 16,000 meters via helicopter to test aerodynamics. The car crashed into a dry pan, landing faster than a Porsche driven the same distance. Nearby, camels named Bonty, Venter, and Naomi—descendants of police patrol animals from Witdraai—observed the scene.
At Sandstone Estates outside Ficksburg, on the edge of the Grassy Karoo, enthusiasts gather for Stars of Sandstone Week. The event features roaring battle tanks, vintage aircraft like Harvards and Tiger Moths, and Africander oxen pulling pioneer wagons. Central attractions are restored steam trains chugging along 25 kilometers of narrow-gauge track against the Maluti Mountains. Owner Wilfred Mole passionately restores machines, such as a German war train recovered from Mozambique's sugar fields, preserving a vibrant mechanical heritage.