Near Kimberley is the Vaalbos National Park, a small reserve containing the extremely rare Black Rhino, and the Bultfontein Mine, offering guided tours of a working diamond mine. For those with a military bent, Magersfontein lies to the south of Kimberley, site of a catastrophic defeat inflicted on the British by the Boers early in the Boer War.
Northwest of Kimberley, Kuruman was a missionary center used by Robert Moffat and David Livingstone. It has a gushing spring known as the ‘Eye of God’ and is near the Wonderwerk Cave, an archaeological site of great importance where some of the earliest evidence of the use of fire has been found.

Uppington is a pleasant town on the banks of the Orange River, on the way to the Augrabies National Park, centered on a series of dramatic waterfalls plummeting 56m (184ft) into a narrow ravine carved through the desert. The park is home to many interesting species of desert plants while local animals include baboons, vervet monkeys, rhino and antelope.
Further to the north is the vast Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, which is one of Africa’s first ‘peace parks’, administered jointly by South Africa and Botswana. It is the largest nature conservation area in southern Africa and one of the largest unspoilt ecosystems in the world, supporting fauna and flora in bewildering variety. To the west, Namaqualand is a vast area of seemingly barren semi-desert, harboring a treasure-house of floral beauty, appearing after sufficient winter rains: daisies, aloes, lilies, perennial herbs and many other flower species. The flowers are best seen from July to September, depending on when the rains fall. Calvinia and Niewoudtville are good locations for flowers.
In the far north, on the Namibian border, is the remote and rocky Richtersveld National Park, accessible only by 4-wheel drive, with an extraordinary lunar landscape and wide variety of rare desert plants.