Arguably one of the most beautiful scenic Game Lodge properties in South Africa, a 20 kilometer river canyon runs through its centre. A winding gorge, bounded by massive cliffs displaying diverse and multicolored sediments deposited over hundreds of millions of years.

For 55 million years, a shallow inland sea, the Great Karoo is widely regarded as a wonder of the scientific world. The rocks of the Karoo contain the most complete and uninterrupted fossil record of life on Earth from about 270 to 180 million years ago. Minute detail from the Permian to the Jurassic period are captured in Karoo fossils. Visitors regularly find fossilized remains on their walks.

With the break up of the super continent Gondwanaland and the drifting of the continents 90 million years ago, the Great Karoo area became a hotspot for lava flows. These flows consisting mainly of iron rich Dolorites (very attractive to lightening strikes) have over millions of years been eroded to form unusual rock formations. Thornhill has a unique “Enchanted Valley” where both sides have up to fifty foot high balancing rocks which, when viewed from below reflect the familiar faces of well known characters, millions of years before they were even born (or invented).

The Great Karoo has the largest variety of succulent plants adopted to arid climates found anywhere on Earth, one district alone being home to more species than Great Britain.

Nearby Nelspoort (10 Kms) is home to one of the richest sites of Xam (Bushman) engravings and petroglyphs in the World. The San and Khoi people, the original Bushman of Africa, thrived here, leaving behind the greatest variety of paintings and sites in Africa. Paleontological evidence exists of habitation up to 70,000 years ago.