Steytlerville

Steytlerville sits on the R329 in Baviaans Local Municipality, Sarah Baartman District, on the right bank of the Groot River where it emerges from a valley in the Grootrivierberge at Noorspoort. It's 164km north-west of Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) and 90km east of Willowmore. The town was founded in 1876 on the farm Noorspoort, established by the Dutch Reformed Church out of Uitenhage to serve the farming community in the surrounding hills. It was named after Reverend Abraham Isaac Steytler, who served as Moderator of the Cape synod from 1909 to 1915. Municipal status came in 1891.

The Dutch Reformed Church in Steytlerville is genuinely extraordinary. Built between 1906 and 1907 at a cost of 16,000 pounds and consecrated the same year construction was completed, it is the largest Edwardian-era church in Southern Africa. It seats 1,200 congregants. In a town of this size, the scale makes an impression the moment you drive down the main road. It was not built to be modest.

The town's architecture tells its history: Edwardian and Victorian houses with tin roofs, broekie lace, stained-glass windows, and wide street-facing verandas. The streets were laid out wide enough for an ox wagon to turn around, and they still are. There's a museum, a Valley of Flags installation, a war and heroes monument, and the Draaikrans cliff, a 61-metre exposed and twisted rock formation south of town that dates from the time the Karoo lay under the Algoa Sea.

Steytlerville has been called the stoep-sitting capital of South Africa, not unkindly. It has that pace. But it is also the eastern gateway to the Baviaanskloof, and once you're done sitting, the wilderness is ten minutes up the valley. 4x4 trails, hiking, mountain biking, and birding into the ravines above town are all within reach. The surrounding semi-desert vegetation, with dwarf shrubs, succulents, wild plum trees, and ancient cycads, is unlike anywhere on the coast.