How the wool boom changed the Karoo farmhouse
The Karoo farmhouse is a domestic archive and a reminder that even the most isolated home was connected to a much wider world.
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A beginner’s guide to Karoo stargazing without expensive equipment
The best approach is to begin small. Learn the Southern Cross and follow the Milky Way. Notice how the sky changes from month to month. The Karoo will do the rest.
The reading culture behind the Karoo’s literary festivals
Karoo literary festivals connect contemporary books with a much older culture of storytelling. They might seem like a recent addition to Karoo life, but they reflect a region that has long used words to cross distance.
What makes a place Karoo?
Perhaps the most accurate definition is that the Karoo begins wherever dryness becomes the organising fact of life: where water determines settlement, distance defines community and people learn that survival depends not on conquering the land, but on understanding its limits.
How the Tankwa came to host two very different communities
The encounter between AfrikaBurn and the farming Tankwa should not be reduced to farmers watching strangely dressed outsiders drive past their gates. The more interesting story is that the same environment has produced two different expressions of independence.
A potentially historic El Niño is developing. What should the Karoo prepare for?
An unusually powerful climate system is developing and will overlap with the Karoo’s hottest months. The appropriate response is to watch the regional forecasts closely and prepare for heat and water stress while there's still time to do so.
The lost art of the farm pantry
The pantry's greatest lesson is that food was once understood as a seasonal resource that required knowledge and labour. Behind every flour bin and bottle of apricot preserve was the same question: how do we make today’s abundance carry us through what might come next?
How the ostrich feather king made, lost and rebuilt his Karoo fortune
Rose’s story shows how quickly global fashion created a local fortune, and how suddenly it withdrew that wealth. His story also shows why one trader continued to trust the ostrich after almost everyone else had lost faith.
Can you travel through the Karoo without using the N1
Travelling without the N1 is entirely possible. The reward is the chance to see the towns that the shortcut leaves behind.
Would a Karoo apprenticeship network solve two problems at once?
An apprenticeship network could create a practical route from learning to earning while protecting knowledge that the Karoo is in danger of losing.
The ancient underground life of Karoo termites
Some of the Karoo’s most important environmental work is performed in darkness as, beneath the shrubs and stones, millions of termites rebuild the ground.
Why old blankets, enamelware and riempie furniture endure
Practicality doesn't have to be the only defence of an old object. A blanket could matter because it covered several generations. An enamel basin recalls a grandmother’s kitchen, while the creak of a riempie chair can bring back a childhood room.
What makes a proper Karoo lamb dish?
Science can explain aromatic plants and cooking temperatures but it can't settle the debate over whether a proper lamb pot needs carrots, whether tomato belongs in a bredie or how ribs should be basted.
Wind farms are changing the work of bird conservationists
The work of conservationists now helps decide not only what should be protected, but where and how energy infrastructure should be built.