Savour the unseen side of South Africa

Isabel Conway takes an intoxicating tour of the lesser-spotted South African Cape

Karoo National Park: the region of South Africa in which it is located is the size of Germany.

The jeep skids over the deeply rutted narrow track, some of it partly washed away by flash floods, before grinding to a halt in the middle of nowhere. We’ve rounded hairpin bends, almost reached mountain-tops and bumped down switchbacks in some of South Africa’s steepest and remotest terrain.

On the way, we’ve admired troops of noisy, bickering baboons in an of Eden of luxuriant foliage below. The baboons politely give up a drop toilet they’ve ...