Augrabies Falls National Park

Before you see anything, you hear it. A low, steady roar rises from somewhere below the rocks, and the air in front of you feels faintly damp. Under your feet the granite is smooth and warm, polished pale by sun and water. Around you the land looks dry and silent. Then the boardwalk turns, the ground falls away, and the Orange River throws itself into a narrow slot of stone.

This is Augrabies Falls, in the far north-west of South Africa, in the Northern Cape. The name is usually traced to the Khoikhoi, the herding people who lived along this river long before European settlers arrived. Their word is often given as Aukoerebis, and it is commonly translated as "place of great noise". Stand here for one minute and the name explains itself. The sound fills the whole gorge, and it changes with the season and the volume of the water.

The river itself has travelled a very long way to reach this point. The Orange rises in the highlands of Lesotho, far to the east, and crosses most of the width of South Africa. Many people here also use its older name, the Gariep, which means simply "great river". By the time it arrives at Augrabies, it is the only large source of fresh water across a vast semi-desert. That single fact shapes everything you see around you — the plants, the animals, the farms, and the towns.

Look down into the gorge. The main fall drops about sixty metres, and the water lands in a deep, churning pool. But the falls are only the start. Below them, the river has cut a long, narrow canyon through solid granite, running for around eighteen kilometres downstream. The walls are steep and dark, streaked with mineral stains. In places they are so close together that the river looks squeezed, like water forced through a pipe.

Here is something many visitors miss. This rock is extremely old — it belongs to some of the most ancient crust on the African continent. The river did not carve through soft sediment. It worked slowly through hard granite and gneiss, a banded, crystalline rock, along lines of weakness in the stone. Notice how smooth and rounded the surfaces are near the edge. Water, sand and pebbles have scoured them over countless floods, and the result looks almost like poured concrete.

The falls also change dramatically from year to year. In a dry season, you may see one main stream and a few thin side channels. After heavy rains far upstream, the river can swell to an enormous width. In big flood years, water pours over the whole rock face in dozens of separate falls, and spray rises high above the gorge. Locals often keep photographs of famous floods, and they will tell you that no two visits look the same.

Now a story — and it is a story, not documented history. According to a popular local tale, the pool at the base of the falls holds a fortune in diamonds. The idea is that the river has carried stones down from the diamond fields upstream for thousands of years, and that they collect in the deep water below. Nobody has proved it. The pool is dangerous, the currents are violent, and the legend has stayed exactly that — a legend.

That danger is real, and it is worth taking seriously. The rocks near the edge look gentle and inviting, but they are slippery, and they slope toward the drop. People have died here after climbing past the barriers. The fences and boardwalks exist for a good reason. Stay behind them, keep children close, and enjoy the view from the platforms. The best angles are available without any risk at all.

Turn away from the water for a moment and look at the land. This is a landscape of quiet survivors. You will see the quiver tree, a thick-trunked aloe with branches that fork into a crown of grey-green leaves. The San people, the region's earliest hunter-gatherers, are said to have used its hollow branches as quivers for their arrows. In the low light of morning or evening, these trees stand out sharply against the rock.

Now watch the rocks closely, especially near the falls. Here comes the second surprise. Small lizards dart across the granite, and the males are brightly coloured — blue, orange and yellow, almost like painted toys. These are Broadley's flat lizards. Their bodies are flat so they can slip into narrow cracks in the stone. They gather here in large numbers to feed on the black flies that breed in the river spray. Few places anywhere offer such a dense, colourful display.

The wider park holds much more than the falls. It was proclaimed a national park in 1966, and it now protects a large stretch of semi-desert on both sides of the river. Small antelope called klipspringers balance on the rocky outcrops, on hooves made for stone. Rock hyraxes, known locally as dassies, sun themselves on ledges. Springbok and gemsbok graze on the plains, and giraffe have been introduced. Verreaux's eagles, large black eagles, hunt across the cliffs.

If you have time, drive or walk to the viewpoints downstream. Places such as Ararat and Oranjekom look straight down into the gorge, far from the noise of the main falls. There the canyon feels vast and very still. Another favourite spot is Moon Rock, a great dome of bare granite that you can climb for a wide view over the park. Outside the park gates, the river feeds green ribbons of vineyards around Kakamas — a sharp contrast to the dry hills.

Before you leave, stand still on the platform once more. Listen to the roar, and notice how it fills your chest as well as your ears. Feel the light spray on your skin, and the warmth coming off the rock. Look at the pale granite, the quiver trees, and the bright flash of a lizard on the stone. As you walk back along the boardwalk, the sound will fade slowly behind you... but the river will keep cutting its way through this ancient rock, just as it has for an unimaginably long time.