Colesberg

Colesberg was founded in 1830 on the site of an abandoned London Missionary Society station, named after Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole, the Cape Governor at the time. For years it was one of the most remote European outposts in the Cape interior, which made it a natural staging point for hunters, traders, and settlers heading deeper into the continent. The district was proclaimed in 1837 and the town became a municipality three years later. Its location at the convergence of major routes was its defining feature then, and it still is today.

The N1 from Cape Town to Johannesburg passes directly through Colesberg. So does the N9. So does the road to Gqeberha. The result is a town that handles a constant flow of through traffic and has built a functioning tourist economy around it. There are good guesthouses, decent restaurants for a Karoo town, fuel, and repair shops. At the right time of year, you'll share the petrol forecourt with overland trucks, horse floats, and every configuration of caravan known to South Africa.

The town itself has a colonial-era core worth a short walk. The Colesberg Museum covers the frontier history and the Anglo-Boer War period, when the area saw significant military action. The surrounding Karoo landscape is typical of the upper Karoo: dry, open, and photogenic at dawn and dusk. There's a regional dam outside town that provides some respite from the flatness and supports birdlife.

Colesberg is not a destination in the conventional sense, but it's a better place than most people give it credit for. If you're driving the N1 and you need to stop, you could do a lot worse than spending a night here and actually looking around.