Klaarstroom - The Village
laarstroom
Guest House is situated in the picturesque, peaceful
village
of Klaarstroom, an authentic Victorian, working
farm village situated at
the foot of the Swartberg Mountains. The village
is positioned at the Great Karoo entrance to Meiringspoort,
a spectacular gorge through the Swartberg mountain range which links the
Great Karoo and the Little Karoo (Klein Karoo).
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for our latest news
Klaarstroom
Guest House is conveniently situated behind sheltering koppies, just
500m off the N12, a major artery from Gauteng and the Free State to
the Southern Cape Coast (Garden Route, Plettenberg Bay,
Knysna, George, Fancourt, Hartenbos, Stilbaai). This makes us
a convenient stopover en route to any of these destinations.
Klaarstroom also serves as a stopover for 4x4 enthusiasts from the Cape Town
area who wish to get a close and early start before exploring Baviaanskloof.
Next
time you are driving along the road towards Meiringspoort turn into
Klaarstroom and if the sign is up outside the guest house, feel free to
drop into the Klaarstoom Tea Room and Koffie Kombuis for ... tea
and cake, coffee and rusks, a milkshake, breakfast or any combination of
the above that tickles your fancy!
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Klaarstroom forms a hub from which to explore the tourist heartland of
the Klein Karoo (Oudtshoorn is
60km to the South-West) and the tranquility of the vast plains
of the Great Karoo (Prince Albert is
60km to the East, Beaufort West and the Karoo National
Park, 120km to the
North).
Guests also find Klaarstroom a comfortably situated retreat from which to enjoy the bustle of the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn and the annual Prince Albert Olive Festival, their Leesfees and every second year, the PArt festival.
Klaarstroom,
meaning "clear stream", was established in the mid-19th
century. It presented the first opportunity to farmers from deep
in the Great
Karoo, en route to the small port of Mossel Bay, to wash their
precious cargo of wool in the clear mountain streams. A wool-washing
facility was soon established. Time, technology, the railroad and modern
highways passed Klaarstroom by with the wool-washing facility having
long since disappeared.
Today
the
tiny inner village is hidden away from the nearby highway. It
remains an historical snapshot of a Southern African Victorian village,
sporting three churches, a Victorian police station, an old-world General
Dealer Store and excellent examples of restored Victorian homesteads.
The Anglican Church cemetery has two
Anglo-Boer War graves - each with its own story.
click on a picture to see enlargements
