A few days after our trip to Vloedbos Resort, Sarabi was still mostly packed and ready to go. This time the plan was simple: point her north, meet Shawn in Upington, and find camp on Verneukpan for the first overlanding and camping trip in his new Range Rover Evoque.
North to Upington
With the previous trip still fresh, there was very little preparation left to do. Sarabi had already proved that everything was where it needed to be, so it was a matter of loading the last few essentials and heading north.
Shawn was travelling down from Gauteng to meet me in Upington. From there, the two vehicles turned toward Verneukpan, leaving the town behind for the wide, open spaces of the Northern Cape.
The Wide-Open Verneukpan
Verneukpan lies in Bushmanland, south of Kenhardt in the Northern Cape. It is a vast dry salt pan, roughly 57 km long and 11 km wide at its broadest, where the flat white surface reaches toward a horizon that seems to keep moving farther away.
Its Afrikaans name, verneuk, means to trick or mislead, which makes sense when you are standing out on the pan. The scale plays with your sense of distance: vehicles look close when they are not, and the heat and open ground can turn the far horizon into a shimmer. The pan is not always bare either; after good rain, shallow water can draw birdlife to this otherwise harsh and arid landscape.
Camp on the Pan
Verneukpan has a way of making the landscape feel enormous. The horizon runs uninterrupted in every direction, and once the vehicles were parked and camp was up, there was nothing much to do except take it in.
For Shawn, it was the first proper chance to get the new Evoque out of the city and into camp. There is a particular satisfaction in that first trip: learning the vehicle’s rhythm, working out the packing, and seeing how a simple overnight outside can change the way you look at the road ahead.
As evening arrived, the pan shifted from bright white to long shadows and soft colour. We made camp, settled in for the night, and enjoyed the kind of quiet that only comes with a big sky and no nearby traffic.
A Clear Northern Cape Morning
Morning on the pan arrived with clear light, coffee, and the familiar task of packing down camp. It was a short trip, but it delivered exactly what we came for: a good meet-up, a night under the stars, and a memorable first overlanding outing for Shawn and his Evoque.
The Northern Cape does not need much to make an impression. Give it an open road, a place to camp, and a reason to head out, and the trip becomes its own reward.
The full Verneukpan trip is on the YouTube channel. Watch the video above.