The town
by Jenniflower
Oudtshoorn is a lot bigger than I expected to be honest. It is the biggest town in the Little Karoo.
It is fondly called the 'ostrich capital of the world' :)
The people here are friendly and welcoming generally. Afrikaans is mostly spoken but they do speak and understand English, so dont worry about arriivng and not being able to communicate with the locals!
It is a town that has the most sunny days of any other place in the country too.
The town is named after Baron Pieter van Rheede van Oudtshoorn, who was enroute to Cape Town to become the new Govenor, and he didnt quite get there! This took place in 1773.
It has a couple of lovely monumnets, namely the C.P. Nel Museum and Le Roux's Townhouse, and offers tradition, culture and fun to the visitor.
Cango Caves ~ an overview
by Jenniflower
This was something I had always wanted to do! The caves have been declared a National Monument and has breathtaking beauty and charm.
The tunnels, halls (called 'phreatic chambers') and rock formations here are formed of limestone and rock, after many thousands of years of water dripping into the cave through cracks.
The cave itself is 5.3km in length, with some massive halls and smaller and narrower tunnels. The speleothems, stalagtites and stalagmites (please excuse my spelling?) are awesome, as are the crystal and flow structures.
A standard tour can be done in one hour, or a more involved adventure (and dirty!) tour and a half hours... but you need to be rather slim to do this one! I opted out ;)
The tour guide was very good and knew his stuff... although he did tell a few 'trying-to-be-funny' stories too... but some people enjoy that I guess! We tipped him R10 when we exited as a thank you.
Cango Caves
by cleocat
Apart from the ostrich farming the caves must be the other attraction that gets people to drive Km's to visit Oudshoorn.
The last time we where there the kids were still small so it gave me a good excuse to only go into the 1st 2 halls.
Everybody told me how amazing the rest was but I'm just to claustophobic for that. (even in winter I always have an open window somewhere in my house or car )
In any case the 1st 2 halls are amazingly beautiful. You can buy the tickets seperately to do the 1st 2 halls or the whole trip. If you are pressed for time it is worthwhile going and do the short trip.
The camera we had at the time couldn't take photo's inside the cave but as you can see from the picture the mountains around the cave is also majestic.
Wilgewandel Holiday Farm
by mvtouring
As we drove past Wilgewandel Holiday Farm we noticed the camels waiting for the next rider to pitch. They have seven very friendly and well-trained dromedary camels that can't wait to offer you a ride. Their names are: Joshua, Moses, Vossie, Abraham, Nelson, Thabo and Josef.
They offer many other interesting things to do, cannot tell you anything about the prices.
Oudtshoorn - Home of the Ostrich
by kentishgirl
Oudtshoorn is a small town a few hours inland from the Garden route.
I had read a lot about Oudtshoorn and the famous Ostrich industry here, I was eager to visit.
I was not too keen on the Ostrich farms once I had visited them, but I was in awe at the scenery and found a gem in the Cango Caves.
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Frozen Victoria Waterfall
Ostriches
Cango Caves 3
Ali standing on the Ostrich eggs!
