Activities & Attractions
"Now I am going to put my hat on & go out for a walk over the Karroo. Such a sense of wild exhilaration & freedom comes to me when I walk over the Karroo."
- Olive Schreiner
Activities
Matjiesfontein offers a host of exciting and adventurous activities to complement your stay – The Matjiesfontein Bucket List. From an informative, historical bus tour to mountain biking in the vast open Karoo, you’ll have plenty of new memories to take home.
The Old Post Office
A veritable array of gifts and bygones await the curious eye - striking to think that it was from this very office that Olive Schreiner posted her numerous letters, and renowned war correspondent (And subsequent thriller writer) Edgar Wallace his Anglo-Boer war dispatches.
Pink Chruch
Originally the school and concert hall – note the large hearth in one of the rear rooms.
Historic Cricket Pitch
Cricket was a major passion of JD Logan with the first official game played at the opening of the waterworks in November 1889.
Court House and Jail
It was here in 1901 that the high-profile trial and conviction of the captured boer hero General Gideon Scheepers took place.
Flourmill and Mineral Waterworks
Steam locomotives required 300l of water and 75kgs of coal for every kilometer travelled – over 250,000l of water to cross the Karoo!
The Railway Station
The original station opened on this site on 1st Feb 1878 as the railway made its way North, reaching Lainsburg later the same year.
The Travellers Chapel
This building on the bank of Monument river originally housed gas-generating equipment used to light the village.
Museums
The passing of time is made visible at Matjiesfontein's museums. The incomparable collections will take you back 120 years into the past and show you just what life was like at this colonial outpost.
The Old Bank Building
The African Banking Corporation opened chambers here in June 1897, in a building purpose built by Logan.
British Army Remount Camp
During the years of the British remount encampment, the area in front of the railway station served as parade ground – over 10,000 infantry and 20,000 horses were camped in the surrounding veld.
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