Wild Karoo, by Mitch Reardon

Wild Karoo, by Mitch Reardon. Penguin Random House South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa 2018. ISBN 9781775843252 / ISBN 978-1-77-584325-2

Author of Wild Karoo, Mitch Reardon, worked as a ranger in South Africa and Namibia before becoming a wildlife photographer and writer.

Mitch Reardon  

A journey through history, change and revival in an ancient land

In the spring of 2015, I set out on a journey of some 4,000 kilometres through the Karoo, South Africa's strangely beautiful, high-lying central plateau. While travelling through deep Karoo space, I awoke expectant each morning, anticipating the discovery of something new, and I was rarely disappointed. I explored new headlands and glimpsed celestial landscapes formed from the mysterious process of continuous creation. It can be rough out there and chancy, but that's to be expected. The mighty mountain chains that surround the Karoo trap rain-bearing sea winds on the weather side of the slopes, rendering the leeward side one of the driest regions in Africa. Its aridity is reflected in its name: 'Karoo' comes from a Khoekhoen word, possibly garo or karusa, meaning 'dry' or 'desert'. Early European colonists referred to it simply as the Great Thirstland. [...] This vast and often mountainous region of dwarf shrubs and rocky plains can be subdivided into two closely related eco-regions: the Succulent Karoo in the west has a low winter rainfall; in the east, the Nama Karoo has a higher summer rainfall. Together they are one of the world's most ancient deserts, far older than the Sahara. Partly defined by its topography, partly by its geology, there is no precise definition of what constitutes this wide, stone-faced land. Even its shape and size varies according to your source of reference. Many South Africans believe the Karoo is wholly contained within South Africa, comprising as it does 60 per cent - approximately 400,000 km2 - of that country's landmass. But in the west it extends into Namibia as far north as the town of Liideritz and inland to Keetmanshoop. However, for the purposes of this book I opted to use the two countries' common border, the Orange (or Gariep) River as my northwestern cutoff line and only crossed to the river's northern side when travelling east into the Kimberley region. Like most South Africans, I grew up thinking of the Karoo as that long, hot, boring stretch on the road journey between Johannesburg and Cape Town. How times have changed! After sheep and ostriches, the Karoo is now experiencing its latest growth industry - ecotourism. As more and more visitors are discovering, the dazzling desolation of this country's parched heartland has an allure all of its own. And it certainly isn't boring. Modernity has done much to shrink horizons and tame frontiers, but because the Karoo is one of South Africa's driest and most thinly populated regions, it has until recently remained largely unexplored on either side of its main arterial highway. Certainly it was mostly terra incognita to me, and that was a great part of its attraction. The fascination and romance of leisurely travel in interesting, unknown surroundings were inducement enough to undertake this safari - the lure of exotic country is an irresistible enticement to adventure. But my overarching purpose was to visit the Karoo's wildlife parks, which are less known than South Africa's more celebrated north-eastern bushveld sanctuaries, and to see what was being done to restore a measure of the lost grandeur and complexity that the great herds of wild animals once brought to this fiercely majestic place. And what an amazing place it turned out to be. [...]

This is an excerpt from Wild Karoo, by Mitch Reardon.

Title: Wild Karoo
Subtitle: A journey through history, change and revival in an ancient land
Author: Mitch Reardon
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Imprint: Struik Nature
Cape Town, South Africa 2018
ISBN 9781775843252 / ISBN 978-1-77-584325-2
Softcover, 18 x 23 cm, 224 pages, throughout colour photographs