Tankwa Karoo National Park

The Tankwa is one of the driest places in South Africa, a stone plain of about 146,000 hectares lying between the Cederberg and the Roggeveld escarpment, with annual rainfall often under a hundred millimetres. Most of the year it looks empty: gravel flats, low succulent scrub, quiver-like trees along dry watercourses, and the Roggeveld wall rising to the east. After rare rain the succulent Karoo flowers and the emptiness turns briefly into colour. Wildlife is arid-adapted - gemsbok, springbok, Hartmann's mountain zebra, black-backed jackal - and the birdlife includes larks found almost nowhere else. The reason many people come is the sky: no towns, no light, and clear dry air make this some of the best stargazing in the country. The park is deliberately undeveloped, roads are sharp gravel notorious for cutting tyres, and there is no fuel or shop.

What you actually see

• The stone plain - gravel flats and low succulents between two mountain walls.
• The night sky - almost no light pollution and dry clear air.
• The arid game - gemsbok, springbok and mountain zebra adapted to no water.
• The rare bloom - succulent Karoo flowering briefly after unusual rain.

When to go

April to September; summer routinely passes forty degrees. Two days given the distance.

Honest expectations

The gravel roads are famous for shredding tyres - carry two spares and go slow. No fuel, no shop, no reliable phone signal inside the park. Summer heat is dangerous. Accommodation is basic and self-catering. The landscape reads as empty to some visitors, and that is the honest description.

Nearby

The Cederberg is west; Sutherland and its observatory are north-east.