Witsand and the Roaring Sands

A Nine Kilometre Field Of White Dunes Rising Out Of Red Kalahari Sand, Which Nobody Has Fully Explained And Which ROAR, BOOM OR GROWL AUDIBLY WHEN THE SAND IS THOROUGHLY DRY, A Phenomenon Recorded At Only A Handful Of Dune Fields On Earth And One That Cannot Be Promised On Any Given Day · Postmasburg, Northern Cape

Everything about this place is the wrong colour and the wrong sound. The Kalahari here is red, iron-stained and uniform for hundreds of kilometres, and then without warning there is a nine-kilometre field of white dunes sitting in the middle of it, pale as a beach, fed by a groundwater system that washes the iron out of the sand from below. Nobody has fully explained it. And when the sand is thoroughly dry - which is the condition, and the row will not pretend otherwise - walking or sliding down the slopes produces a sound: a roar, a boom, a growl loud enough to feel through your feet, a phenomenon recorded at only a handful of dune fields anywhere on earth and never quite satisfactorily accounted for. The San called it the place that roars. It is two hundred kilometres east of Upington, it has a small reserve with camping and chalets, and almost nobody in South Africa has ever heard of it.

In the Kalahari 200 km east of Upington, between Postmasburg and Groblershoop off the N14, Postmasburg, Northern Cape, South Africa

Daylight hours for day visitors with a modest fee, and overnight guests have the dunes to themselves outside those hours, WHICH IS THE BETTER DEAL BY SOME MARGIN - the sound works best in the dry heat of the afternoon and the dunes photograph best at dawn and dusk, and both of those want you staying. THE ROARING ONLY HAPPENS WHEN THE SAND IS THOROUGHLY DRY: after rain, in a humid spell, or early on a damp morning, the dunes are silent, and no fee and no guide can change that. There is camping, a handful of chalets, a swimming pool and braai facilities; THERE IS NO SHOP AND NO FUEL, so arrive provisioned from Postmasburg, Groblershoop or Upington. The access road off the N14 is gravel. MALARIA-FREE, and brutally hot from November to February.

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