Get away from it all in Vanderkloof

Lying among koppies on the shore of South Africa's second-largest dam is Vanderkloof, an oasis in the Upper Karoo. There seems to be consensus that you won't find a town anywhere else in the country as peaceful and safe as this one.

- MIA LOUW

As you approach the Vanderkloof Dam from the north – from Bloemfontein via Koffiefontein and Luckhoff – the road forks about 1,6km before the dam wall. Keep right and you will cross the Orange River via a bridge that offers a view of the dam wall downstream. Bear left and you will travel over the highest dam wall in the country and cross the provincial border between the Free State and the Northern Cape.

The Vanderkloof Dam overflowed from early summer last year until late autumn this year – the sight of such a large mass of water in this dry landscape catches you completely by surprise. It’s an oasis in the Upper Karoo landscape characterised by mountains that shield you from the outside world.

There’s a large circle at the entrance to the town decorated with a flower formed with stones that are painted red and yellow. Bennie Liebenberg started the project shortly after his wife, Thirza, died of cancer in 2017. It was her idea to have a daisy or sunflower in the centre of the circle. “She had a vision that the desert would bloom again. Things will once again go well for our people – the town and the country,” Bennie says. The vegetation in this normally arid landscape is indeed blooming, particularly since 827mm fell here during the recent rainy season – from October 2021 to the end of June this year. (In December alone, they measured 193mm of rain!)

Bennie plans to transform the 96m