Almost 30 kilometres outside of Outshoorn in the Klein Karoo, and certainly one of the main reasons for placing this little town on your itinerary, other than the prospect of riding an ostrich, lie the Cango Caves, some of the biggest stalagmite formations in the world set in Precambrian (a time about 4500 million years ago) limestone.

The Cango Caves are a series of dripstone caverns that open into vast halls of towering stalagmite formations with names like ‘the bridal couple’, ‘glass flower fantasy’, ‘weird cango candle’ and ‘the hanging shawl’.

Not all of the caves are open to the public – there is more than one section to the caves that took millions of years to form one of the world’s great natural wonders – but the main sections are available for amazing exploratory subterranean walks that include fumbling around on all fours in an effort to see all that is viewable.

In totality, the extensive system of tunnels and chambers in the Cango Caves stretch for over 4 kilometres, but the section open to visitors, about a quarter of this, takes place as part of supervised tours, including an ‘adventure tour’, which takes about an hour and a half