Calvinia and the Hantam

The Sheep Town Of The Hantam Karoo Under The Hantamsberg, With A Corrugated Iron Dutch Reformed Church That Is One Of The Largest Tin Buildings In The Country, A Good Regional Museum And In A Year With Winter Rain Spring Flower Fields On The Plateau That Rival Namaqualand'S And Are Far Emptier · Calvinia, Northern Cape

The Dutch Reformed church in Calvinia is one of the largest corrugated-iron buildings in South Africa, which tells you most of what you need to know about the Hantam: a place where stone was expensive, sheep were the economy and tin came up by ox wagon. The town sits under the Hantamsberg on a high Karoo plateau four hundred kilometres north of Cape Town, and it is one of the great sheep districts of the country - merino country, enormous farms, and a regional museum that is a good deal better than a town of this size has any business having. In a year with decent winter rain the plateau around it turns in spring into flower fields that rival Namaqualand's and carry a fraction of Namaqualand's traffic, which is the single best reason to come. In a dry year there are no flowers at all, and the row says so here rather than letting you drive four hundred kilometres and find out on the plateau.

On the Hantam plateau in the Northern Cape, 400 km north of Cape Town on the R27, Calvinia, Northern Cape, South Africa

A working Karoo sheep town on the R27. THE CALVINIA MUSEUM in the old synagogue keeps daylight weekday hours with shorter Saturdays and is the one thing in town genuinely worth timing a visit around. The CORRUGATED-IRON DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH is a working church, seen from outside at any hour and inside by arrangement or at services. THE SPRING FLOWERS - roughly August into September - DEPEND ENTIRELY ON WINTER RAIN AND FAIL COMPLETELY IN A DRY YEAR; the tourism office and the regional flower lines are the only way to know, and they should be checked before committing a four-hundred-kilometre drive. Fuel, shops and a few guesthouses are in town, and FLOWER SEASON FILLS EVERY BED. MALARIA-FREE, and bitterly cold on winter nights.

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