The Eye of Kuruman

Die Oog, the Eye, is a natural spring in the middle of Kuruman that delivers something in the region of twenty million litres of water a day - a figure that means little until you stand in the surrounding Kalahari and realise how dry everything else is. Water comes from a dolomite aquifer, emerges clear and constant, and has done so through droughts that emptied everything else in the district; it is usually described as the strongest natural spring in the southern hemisphere. That reliability is why the town exists at all, and why the London Missionary Society established a station at Kuruman in the 1820s under Robert Moffat, whose printing press produced the first Setswana Bible. The spring is now enclosed in a small walled garden with fish in the pool and shade trees, feeding a stream that supplies the town and irrigates gardens downstream.

What you actually see

• The flow - around twenty million litres a day emerging in semi-desert.
• The dolomite aquifer - a source that held through droughts which emptied everything else.
• The walled garden - the spring enclosed with shade trees and fish in the pool.
• The reason for the town - a settlement and mission that exist because of this water.

When to go

All year. One hour. It is a short stop on the way to the Kgalagadi or Upington.

Honest expectations

It is a small enclosed pool in a town garden - impressive as a fact, modest as a sight. There is a fee and limited facilities. Kuruman itself is a working mining-district town, not a tourist destination.

Nearby

The Moffat Mission is in the same town; Witsand is south-west.