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Northern Cape snapshots of Fraserburg, Eksteenfontein, Khuboes, Riemvasmaak and Kimberley

Northern Cape snapshots of Fraserburg, Eksteenfontein, Khuboes, Riemvasmaak and Kimberley
Kimberley’s reconstructed digger’s village. (Image: Chris Marais)
Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit
By Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit
22 Nov 2024
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These five Northern Cape towns are little-known gems with fascinating histories.

Fraserburg, a little-known farmer’s town in the Northern Cape, actually punches well above its weight when it comes to local attractions – and interesting residents.

The most astounding feature in the Fraserburg district is a footprint on a farm. About 252 million years ago a lumbering bradysaurus strolled over a clay bed and left a deep print that you can still see today. It’s now part of riverbed rock. The local museum is where you start your Ancient Footprint Safari. They have a model bradysaurus and will provide you with a guide to take you out to the farm.

On a stroll around, have a look at the Anglican Church of St Augustines. It was one of many designed by genius architect Sophie Gray, the Victorian-era wife of the Bishop of Cape Town, Robert Gray. It was built in the Gothic style, with no steeple. You’ll find the bell tower next to the church.

The famous footprints of Fraserburg. (Photo: Chris Marais)



Read more: Fraserburg and a prehistoric walk on the wild side with its fantastic fossils

Everyone directs you to The Pepper Pot building, which has become the icon of Fraserburg. It’s a rather strange six-sided structure used for the ringing of the old curfew bells.

Also, take the time to chat with people while you’re on the walk or in your guest house and pretty soon you’ll have a view of Fraserburg that you never could have guessed at before. It’s an old-time Karoo town – with old-time style.

Eksteenfontein – The Nama Stap


The people of Eksteenfontein first came to this rocky part of the Richtersveld in the mid-1950s. They mostly originated in Bushmanland, in the general area of the present town of Pofadder, and many of them came from a farm called Bo-Sluis (Above the Sluice). They were mixed race, mostly white farmers having married Khoikhoi women.

By the late 1940s, the situation had become untenable for the Basters, as they were called. The white community, on the whole, wanted them to leave. A Reverend Eksteen negotiated a home for them in the Richtersveld, then classified as a ‘coloured reserve’.

Northern Cape Kobus and Sarah Joseph photographed at their Eksteenfontein stock post in 2007. (Photo: Chris Marais)



It took a month for them to trek there, with their oxwagons, donkey carts and livestock. They came out of those naked dunes and flat lands to a world of mountains, stones and kloofs, to a place with the off-putting name of Stinkfontein. They renamed it Eksteenfontein for the Reverend who had found them a new home.

Today, Eksteenfontein remains a poor little village where, if it rains, you might fall into a pothole. But it’s set in a deep mountain cleft and in the spring, this is where you want to bring your city soul. The flowers that bloom out between the white rocks on the hillsides and the succulents guarding them all year ‘round are simply mesmerizing.

And when the kids begin to dance the Nama Stap, which is like a Richtersveld Line Dance, it looks like something from a movie set in Macedonia as the girls’ dresses billow in the wind, their doekies flap and the boys lead them stiffly in that “I’d-rather-be-playing-football” manner so perfected by teenagers the world around…

Khuboes sings


Khuboes is a small settlement in the eastern reaches of the Richtersveld, near the Ai Ais – Richtersveld Transfrontier Park. 

It sits in the shade of three mountains: The Khuboesberg, the Vandersterr Berg and the Ploegberg. 

Read more: Unearth Karoo heritage and explore charming towns and their rich cultural narratives

At midday in the desert heat, nothing stirs much in Khuboes. But venture out onto its streets at night and you see the various neighbourhoods at play. There is music, children run in the streets and the ‘old folks’ visit each other. The nomadic shepherds often come in from the veld to socialise and there is much singing, because Khuboes is rightly proud of its local choir.

Khuboes village was established as a place of worship for the stock-herding clans that constantly moved about these dry lands in search of grazing for their flocks of mainly goats. A Rhenish Missionary Church was completed in Khuboes in 1893, and the village has become a significant Nama cultural centre.

Much of the magic of Khuboes is actually getting there. Your best route to Khuboes (and eventually the nearby Park) is to drive across from Alexander Bay along the Orange River.

En route, you will come across Cornell’s Kop, named after the luckless prospector Fred Cornell, who could never find a single diamond in these diamond-rich parts. He did, however, leave the world a wonderful book called The Glamour of Prospecting, which is a great insight into a diamond hunter’s adventures along the Orange River nearly a century ago. 

Riemvasmaak hot springs


Deep in the Faraway Karoo, in a world of rocks, mountains and riverbeds, is the rural village of Riemvasmaak. 

Riemvasmaak is rarely in the public eye, and normally visited only by the 4X4 crowd on their way to a very special canyon where they camp next to a hot spring.

The old Damara folk from centuries ago bathed in the waters of this spring, said to have wonderful curative powers, especially for those suffering from rheumatism.

The Damara and Koranna people grazed their flocks of goats in this hardscrabble country until they were ousted by the government in the 1970s. The military moved in, setting up a training ground. After the change of government in 1994, the land was returned to the children of the original Riemvasmakers.

The name ‘Riemvasmaak’ refers to the tightening of leather straps. The legend goes that stock thieves were once caught here and tied up in the Molopo River with leather straps. The next morning they had disappeared, leaving nothing but the loosened straps behind.

Nowadays, the people of Riemvasmaak welcome you to enjoy the stark scenery, stay over in special guest cabins or simply camp out near the fabled hot springs. The summers are particularly brutal up here, and winter nights can get very cold. Most visitors come in the shoulder seasons of September to October, and May to June.

Northern Cape Kimberley’s reconstructed diggers’ village. (Photo: Chris Marais)


Kimberley diggings


If you come to Kimberley with a strong sense of curiosity and a smattering of local history, you may well regard your encounter with the Diamond City as one of your most rewarding experiences in South Africa.

The ghosts of diamond barons and diggers, the heady sounds of honky-tonk saloons and boxing rings, auctions and arrivals, with everything happening around the world’s largest man-made hole in the ground – that’s the soul of Kimberley in the Northern Cape. From 1871, when the first diamonds were found on the farm Vooruitzicht, through to history’s most hectic diamond rush, Kimberley has grown up into a dignified city which honours its past and looks to the future.

The city has a very well-developed tourism route, with all sorts of options. You can go on Ghost Trails, pub crawls, game viewing, fly-fishing expeditions, guided tours of working mines, a trip on the tram cars through the recreated historic village, the museums, the San Art Centre, township tours and a poignant visit to the nearby Magersfontein Anglo-Boer War battle site. 

The McGregor Museum is an elegant testimony to early Kimberley lifestyles, the Big Hole Museum will keep you occupied for most of a day, tours of Galeshewe Township, the Wildebeestkuil Rock Art Centre and the poignant Magersfontein battle site will ensure you spend at least a week exploring the ins and outs of the Diamond City in the Kalahari. DM



For more stories on the Karoo from Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais, try their Karoo Roads series of books, priced at R350 (landed) each.

The Karoo Quartet Special (Karoo Roads 1 – 4) consists of more than 60 Karoo stories and hundreds of black and white photographs. Priced at R960 (including taxes and courier in South Africa), this Heritage Collection can be ordered from [email protected]

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