The Klein Karoo Kannaland, a narrow valley constrained by rugged
mountains to the south and north, is a semidesert broken by
lush river valleys.
A climate dominated by the sun produces excellent wines and
port in the Calitzdorp and De Rust areas. Locally produced dried
fruit, raisins and cheese also bear connoisseurs' unquestionable
stamps of approval.
Oudtshoorn, the centre of the ostrich industry and the world's
feather capital, is the region's leading town. Feather palaces,
large mansions built during the ostrich feather boom, form part
of the Kannaland's architectural heritage.
Today, the world's largest flightless bird sates the appetites
of gastronomes with succulent steaks and those of culinary philistines
with deliciously spicy biltong.
Twenty-six kilometres from Oudtshoorn, the remarkable Cango
Caves, a series of magnificent, glittering limestone caverns
fashioned over millennia beneath the foothills of the Swartberg
Range, are an international drawcard.
Bearing evidence of early San habitation, the subterranean,
thirty-cave wonderland boasts some of the world's most stunning
dripstone formations. Above the vast tracts of short, hardy
Karoo vegetation, the underworld's ghostly light is replicated
by the Milky Way wheeling across the heavens in galactic grandeur,
seemingly close enough to touch, yet forever out of reach.
