The most remote and extreme cycling environment in South Africa — the Richtersveld Mountain Desert of the Northern Cape meets Namibia at the Orange River gorge in a UNESCO World Heritage Site landscape of moonscape geology

Aggeneys is a base metals mining town in the heart of Bushmanland — a company town surrounded by one of the world's richest polymetallic deposits (zinc

Alexander Bay (restricted access town) | Port Nolloth (50km south) | Springbok (230km)

Augrabies town (10km) | Kakamas (20km) | Upington (120km)

Augrabies town (10km) | Kakamas (20km) | Upington (120km)

One of the smallest and quietest towns on the N7 highway — Bitterfontein is the gravel cyclists' version of a desert pit stop

Britstown sits in the deepest flat heart of the Upper Karoo — a quiet dorp on the seasonal Ongers River that provides one of the most peaceful overnight bases in the Northern Cape for cyclists crossing the province. The river valley loop and open plains circuits offer 50km of completely uncomplicated

A remote Karoo plateau town in the Hantam

Home of the MeerKAT Radio Telescope — 64 dishes spread across the Karoo plains outside Carnarvon

South Africa's road crossroads — Colesberg sits at the intersection of the N1 (Cape Town to Johannesburg)

The quiver tree capital of Namaqualand — Concordia's granite koppies host extraordinary colonies of kokerboom (quiver trees) among the remnants of the historic copper mining belt that predates Kimberley's diamond rush. Twenty-five kilometres of rocky koppie MTB through one of Namaqualand's most photogenic landscapes.

The railway crossroads of the Northern Cape — De Aar's 30km Karoo plains gravel loop winds through Central Karoo sheep farms and dolerite koppies on the flat plains surrounding one of South Africa's most important rail junctions. Also notable as a base for the surrounding solar energy landscape.