Oudtshoorn is ostrich country

Posted on 2 February 2011

Out of Cape Town and with the R62 nearly behind us, our trip was well underway. So far we had driven some beautiful roads, a mountain pass off the beaten track and stopped off at a “Sex” Shop.
As we drove on, it slowly started to happen that more and more ostriches started to appear on either side of the road and we knew Oudtshoorn could not be far. For those of you who do not know, Oudtshoorn is ostrich country and owes its very existence to the ostrich feather industry. It was a “boom” town between 1860 and 1914 when ostrich feathers where high fashion and today is, I imagine, a shadow of its former self. On arrival in Oudtshoorn, we struggled a bit with accommodation, not due to the lack of options, but because we wanted to camp and we wanted to camp in as natural surroundings as possible. The only campsite in town was full and nobody had any other ideas for us, until we met a rather helpful lady who pointed us to the Cango Municipal camp site about 7km outside town and somewhat nearer the real reason we where there: the Cango Caves. The campsite itself was set in beautiful surroundings. However, R130 per person was a bit steep for a campsite and the noisy day visitors (if you can call people who arrive at 6am and leave at 8pm day visitors!) should probably be asked to keep the noise levels down.
With our campsite sorted and the day fast coming to an end, we decided to finish off the afternoon with a tour of the Cango Caves. 29km outside Oudtshoorn, or 22km from our campsite, in the middle of nowhere (or so it seems to me) lies a rather odd looking, maybe even monstrous building, housing the entrance to the caves. Now I have not been to many cave systems in the world but I am pretty sure the Cango Caves must be one of the most spectacular out there. They offer two tours, the Classic and the Adventure tour, to accommodate everybody’s comfort level. The Classic gives everyone a chance to see the amazing stalactites and stalacmites, the Adventure tour offering a bit more of the cave systems and some tight squeezes, a real taster of the life of a spelunker. Just be warned, if you are with a large group on the Adventure tour, which fortunately we were not, you may have to spend some time waiting in certain parts of the cave, whilst the group squeeze through the tighter sections one by one.
Happy to have finally conquered the Cango Caves, it was time to move on and so we headed back to the campsite for some rest. We did not get a chance to visit the Cango Wildlife Ranch and Cheetahland, which is something I would like to have done, if only for the crocodile cage diving. However, I am still not sure about my feelings on allowing people to pet big cats. We woke up bright and early to the music of the day visitors and prepared to move on to our next overnight stop.






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