Oudtshoorn

Municipality

Municipality: Oudtshoorn Local Municipality

Oudtshoorn Tourism Bureau

Voortrekker / Baron van Reede
Oudtshoorn

Phone number: 044-279-2532
Fax number: 044-272-8226
Email: Email inquiry
Web: See the website

Oudtshoorn is named after Baroness Gesina EJ van Reede van Oudtshoorn, wife of George E Bergh, who was the superior administrative officer in the area at the time

Attractions

Also see the neighbouring towns

The CP Nel Museum offers a glimpse of the history of the ostrich feature boom. There is a museum (called Arbeidsgenot) of CJ Langehoven, Afrikaans author of several humorous books, as well as the Afrikaans words of the old national anthem. The Cango Caves, 30Km north of Oudtshoorn, consists of more than 30 interconnected caves and named after the San name for the mountain, Kango, which means Water. The cave system is not yet fully explored and probably strecthes a couple of kilometers in the belly of the earth. The first chamber is 98 long, 49m wide and 15m high. The largest chamber, Grand Chamber, is 107m wide. There are many stalactites and stalagmites formed by the dripping calcite water. The tallest is 12,6m high. The Swartberg Pass (1'568m, and 1'220m above the Little Karoo basin) is on the road to Prince Albert. The Swartberg Mountains, known by the San as the Kango Mountains (which means Water Mountains) is a red-colored sedimentary sandstone range covered with lichen, watsonias and proteas. In the Gamkas Kloof, also known as Die Hel, remnants of a hill-billy type of settlement can be visited. Meiringspoort is another passage through the Swartberg Mountain Range on the N12 route to Beaufort West.

TOP

History

Oudtshoorn was established in 1847 on the farm Hartenbeesrivier, owned by CP Rademeyer. It became a muicipality in 1855. During the last part of the 1800s until 1914 when World War I began, there was an ostrich feature boom, due to demand from the fashion conscious in Europe, America and Japan. Feather barons built mansions, known as feather palaces. Oudtshoorn had 12 architects during the boom. They used local sandstone and developed a typical featehr palace style based on art nouveau with cast-iron brackets and balcony rails and towers.

TOP

Climate

Today's Weather Report

TOP