Karoo National Park

The Karoo National Park was officially proclaimed in 1979, and in 1989, the first rest camp was opened. It might have happened much later if it wasn't for the tireless efforts of a local farmer, William Quinton. Quinton was a born conservationist and enthusiastic birder. During the late 1950s, Quinton began campaigning for a conservation area close to Beaufort West, which led to the Town Council of Beaufort West donating 7 209 hectares of communal land to form the nucleus of the Karoo National Park. The South African Nature Foundation then purchased more land to be incorporated and created the Karoo National Park as we know it today.

The area takes you back hundreds of millions of years in history. The geological layer exposed to the surface is 0 "the Beaufort Group" – it was deposited between 240 and 280 million years ago. It reveals life in the area before Gondwana broke up 180 million years ago. Gondwana was a supercontinent consisting of what is today known as Africa, South America, Antarctica, India, and Australia. There is a fossil trail in Karoo National Park that guides you through the paleontology in the area. Ancient reptiles, extinct amphibians, and mammal-like reptiles are found on this trail. Paleontologists have painted a comprehensive picture of this prehistoric environment that can be easily understood.

The vast arid landscape of the Karoo National Park is host to an amazing array of animals. Dainty klipspringers can be seen all along the rocky outcrops. Herds of springbok, gemsbok, buffalo, Cape mountain zebra, red hartebeest, and eland fill the plains. If you are lucky enough, you might come across a browsing kudu. The cunning black-backed jackal thrives in this reserve, and bat-eared foxes come out at night when they mostly eat the local harvester termites. More than 20 breeding pairs of Verreaux's eagles nest here and can be seen gliding effortlessly as they scan the ground for unlucky rodents. They'll even pick off dassies (rock hyrax) from rocky outcrops.

Lions have been successfully reintroduced into the area and became somewhat famous when a young male named Sylvester escaped the park in 2015 and again in 2016. The highly endangered riverine rabbit has been successfully resettled. The reserve also contains Rau quagga. The Rau quagga resembles the extinct quagga that died out in the 1800s. The quagga was a subspecies of Burchell's zebra that looked just like the zebra, except that its back half was brown. The Rau quagga is just an artificially selected Burchell's zebra, bred to look like the quagga. The park has the most species of tortoise worldwide – five in total. The endangered black rhinoceros also occurs.

The Karoo is the largest ecosystem in South Africa. It comprises two biogeographical regions: the Namaqualand, Namib Desert and the Southern Karoo domain. Several vegetation types and unique geological features can be found in the Karoo, the world's only plant hotspot that is entirely arid. The area is also particularly well-known for its high levels of plant endemism, with more than 1 900 species that cannot be found anywhere else on earth. Despite its many unique trademarks, only 3% lies within areas focusing on conservation. The Karoo National Park conserves an area of approximately 760km².

The landscape is dry, harsh, and challenging. Nevertheless, a wide variety of fauna and an even wider variety of flora have adapted to survive these trying conditions. Deciduous dwarf shrubs and grasslands are the dominant vegetation types, including the Montane Karoo grassy shrublands, Karoo grassy dwarf shrublands, and Karoo succulent dwarf shrublands, to name a few. In terms of geological features, the park is situated in the Ecca Group of the Karoo Supergroup, which consists mainly of mudstone and sandstone that give the rocky outcrops and formations a striking red and gold tinge.