After 5 days in Cape Town we hit the road for the North, driving through Western Cape province – a huge area with the least population in South Africa. It was actually our anniversary but we must have forgotten it while planning this trip so we spent the entire day sitting in the car. Even though the main roads in SA are pretty good maintained, it’s a very long drive from Capetown to Kgalagadi National Park so we decided to take a break and spent the night in Kenhardt, a small town in the middle of nowhere in the Western Cape. The landscape started to change slowly but dramatically, the further North we were, the less green and the more deserted it became with not a single car/person or tree in sight. Although the drive was exhausting, it was deliberating at the same time. We were starting to feel at ease and leave all our worries behind.

Arriving in Oude Herberg in Kenhardt, the number 1 hotel in town – and the only one. We received a very warm welcome from the owner – a nice lady in her 50s. She even cooked dinner for us herself, very tasty steaks, I believe it was springbok. The room was kind of old-fashioned and unique: the toilet was separated from the rest of the room by a folding-screen ;-). It was simple, but very authentic. We took a walk after dinner around the very deserted town, trying to imagine how life in a place like that would be. Finally we found the most beautiful thing Kenhardt had to offer, its incredibly bright sky with a zillion stars at night.

western cape