Oudtshoorn

The laying and the raising of the chicks are shown in order. One egg equals twenty four hen eggs and the weight surprises.

The limestone system runs 4 kilometres, of which a portion is open. The route that crawls through the tight sections has to be booked separately.

Houses built when the feather price soared still stand in the valley. Each room was fitted with materials brought from a different country.

A gravel road crosses the range on hand laid dry stone walls. Built a century ago, it has never taken a surface.

Before sunrise a group sits at the burrow and waits for the meerkats to come out. The family is used to people and comes within a few metres.

Beyond the pass a small village lines up its white walled houses. Water from the channel is still shared house by house at fixed hours.

A farm keeps and breeds cheetah and leopard for conservation. Visitors walk the paths between the enclosures with a guide explaining.

An ostrich egg holds a person standing on it and visitors try it. The weight has to be spread evenly and the farm shows how.

Deep in the dry valley there is one place where water falls. The track is rough, so a vehicle goes in and a short walk finishes it.

Dry air and almost no village lights bring out a crowded sky. Farms hand out blankets and the watching is done lying in the yard.

Housed in a former sandstone boys' school, it gathers clothes and household goods from the ostrich-feather boom. Many feather traders were Jewish, so one room recreates an old synagogue interior. Plumed hats and fans make plain what feathers once fetched.

A tarred road from De Rust threading the Swartberg range along a red-rock gorge floor. It crosses the river again and again between cliffs of folded strata. From the rest stop halfway, a walk of a few minutes reaches a waterfall tucked in the gorge.

An isolated valley nicknamed Die Hel, down a long gravel track off the Swartberg Pass summit. No road came until 1962; people walked over the mountains. The last drop is very steep, there and back takes all day, and some sleep in the valley.