Exploring the beauty at Rogge Cloof Private Nature Reserve

Roughly eight and a half minutes after the sun dies, all life on Earth will start coming to an end. The sun is already dying. These are the kind of things you learn when you go to Sutherland. Most people know this small Karoo town of about 3 000 inhabitants in the Northern Cape as consistently one of the coldest spots in South Africa, with mid-winter minimum temperatures averaging at around -9°C. The record low was -16.4°C measured in July 2003.

Others know it as home to the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) as well as the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the biggest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. However, few people are aware that tourism rivals agriculture in importance to the local economy as astronomers from around the globe stream to Sutherland to gaze at the Milky Way, constellations, planets, stars, nebulae and giants of the southern skies. This is especially the case in winter when viewing conditions are optimal.

Taking the Road Less Traveled

Many has been the time I’ve driven up the N1 from Cape Town, spotted the R354 Sutherland turnoff just opposite Matjiesfontein and pondered heading north to see what the town is all about. Generally, though, I’ve deviated temporarily from my journey in the opposite direction… electing to enjoy the nearer comforts of the Laird’s Arms pub at Matjiesfontein. It was only last year, when I was sent to photograph the Roggeveld Wind Farm – featuring nearly 50 of the highest wind turbines in South Africa – that I continued down the R354 till I saw the steeple of Sutherland’s surprisingly stately Dutch Reformed Church glinting in the late afternoon sun. It being a Sunday in winter, I wasn’t expecting to see much and my expectations were more than met. There is a disparaging line that the pavements are rolled up at noon on Saturdays and this seemed to be the case.

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Instead of heading 110km back to Matjiesfontein on an extremely good road and then home (Sutherland is 340km from Cape Town), I decided to push on to Calvinia in the dark; not knowing I faced 164km of gravel and a moersedetour back to the Mother City via Vanrhynsdorp on the N7. (I’d already missed the turn-off to Ceres via the Tankwa Padstal and, there being negligible cellphone reception in this part of the world, could not check my position via Google Maps.) Still, my interest was piqued and, when I visited the SAAO and spent a night at Rogge Cloof Private Nature Reserve as part of a Kia Seltos media road trip a fortnight ago, I knew it would not be long before I returned.

The Rogge Cloof Private Nature Reserve

It took all of a week and this time I had my girlfriend, who’d flown down from the Eastern Cape, in tow. She’d never been to the Northern Cape or Karoo (nor Matjiesfontein, for that matter) and the trip, she said, was a delightful eye-opener. Rogge Cloof – a recent addition to the Cape Country Routes stable of independently owned and run hotels, lodges and guesthouses in the Western and Eastern Cape – covers almost 20 000 hectares and lies 15km south of Sutherland. About 16 000ha is surrounded by electric fence to prevent the reserve’s free-ranging cheetah population from straying onto neighbouring farms. Rogge Cloof (“Rye Ravine”) dates back to 1756.

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It was bought by the Gerntholtz family of Melkbostrand in the Western Cape as a holiday farm in 1992 and the process of converting the property into a commercial lodge began in 2014. “One of the two original buildings – known as the Peerhuis – was converted into what is now our Rittersaal dining hall, kitchen, reception and curio shop. The other, which we now call Oryx, has become part of our self-catering guest accommodation,” says Ulrich Gerntholtz. As “inclusive” guests (those staying on a dinner, bed and breakfast basis) we were accommodated in one of the Orion suites.

These eight off-grid luxurious chalets overlook a small irrigated plain enclosed by rocky outcrops, down to which herds of springbok come down to graze. In winter it is periodically carpeted by snow. Each suite features a king-size bed, an inside sitting/reading area, wood-burning stove, coffee station and ample parking. With the lodge complex (described by the owners as an “eco-village”) more than 10km from the reserve entrance, guest security is not an issue.

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Wildlife sightings and stargazing at Rogge Cloof

While there are any number of B&B and self-catering establishments in Sutherland itself – many featuring astronomically punny names such as Blue Moon and Stêrland (my favourite is the watering hole known as the Mars There are plans to introduce a female within the next year: presumably her name will be Rosalind. Once we established their general location through telemetry, we alighted the game-viewing vehicle and started tracking on foot.

It was my girlfriend who spotted movement behind a nearby bush and we spent the next 20 minutes carefully moving into position where I could begin snapping away. Though we were less than 15m away, the two cats were completely at ease with our presence and studied us incuriously. Another activity offered to guests is, unsurprisingly, star-gazing and Rogge Cloof bills itself as a “dark sky” reserve because of the absolute lack of light pollution (a feature that is the pride of the entire Sutherland). We could clearly count the craters on the moon through the reserve’s telescope which, we were told, featured a 10- inch mirror.

African experiences and cheetah-tracking at Rogge Cloof

To put this in perspective, SALT boasts 99 mirrors of one metre each. With this, you could probably count gnats on Jupiter. No need to panic, say astronomy experts; the process will still take a couple of million years. Bar) – Rogge Cloof stands supreme among them all. For one thing, it offers a range of activities to provide guests with a more comprehensive African experience. These include hikes and guided tours, a presentation on dinosaur fossils found on the property, wine tasting (Rogge Cloof has its own range of wines from grapes grown on the reserve as well as on other of the owners’ properties and made in Franschhoek), and cheetah-tracking.

The latter appealed to me immensely and we set of with guides Cara and Heinrich to see if we could find the two gracious beasts rather inelegantly nicknamed “Spiffy” and “Stupy”. Their real names are Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man, both of which should be immediately familiar to fans of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. While there are currently only two cheetah on the reserve, their predecessors were Calvin and Hobbes themselves, Miss Worm wood and Suzie.

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Rogge Cloof offers guests a variety of activities

There are plans to introduce a female within the next year: presumably her name will be Rosalind. Once we established their general location through telemetry, we alighted the game-viewing vehicle and started tracking on foot. It was my girlfriend who spotted movement behind a nearby bush and we spent the next 20 minutes carefully moving into position where I could begin snapping away. Though we were less than 15m away, the two cats were completely at ease with our presence and studied us incuriously.

Another activity offered to guests is, unsurprisingly, star-gazing and Rogge Cloof bills itself as a “dark sky” reserve because of the absolute lack of light pollution (a feature that is the pride of the entire Sutherland). We could clearly count the craters on the moon through the reserve’s telescope which, we were told, featured a 10- inch mirror. To put this in perspective, SALT boasts 99 mirrors of one metre each. With this, you could probably count gnats on Jupiter. * No need to panic, say astronomy experts; the process will still take a couple of million years.

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