The Koue Bokkeveld, meaning "Cold Buck Shrubland" in

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

, is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

in the

Western Cape Province The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabi ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. Geologically the range is composed of Cedarberg Sandstone of the Cape System.

Location and extent

It is located above

Prince Alfred Hamlet Prince Alfred Hamlet is a small town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It was founded by Johannes Cornelis Goosen, who was born in the Klein Drakenstein and came to the Warm Bokkeveld as a young farmer. In March 1851 Goosen bought the ...

, north of

Ceres Ceres most commonly refers to: * Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid and first to be discovered * Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres may also refer to: Places Brazil * Ceres, Goiás, Brazil * Ceres Microregion ...

, and south and east of

Citrusdal Citrusdal is a town of 5,000 people in the Olifants River Valley in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is situated at the base of the Cederberg mountains about north of Cape Town. Agriculture in the area is dominated by citrus fruit ...

. The range runs in a WNW-ESE direction with a tall escarpment on its southern and southwestern side. Elevations of the range are an average of 1,600 m and there is often snow in winter. These heights are one of the coldest places in the Western Cape in winter.

Drainage

The Koue Bokkeveld falls within the Olifants/Doring system and the

Doring River The Doring River () is a river in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. It is part of the Olifants/Doring River system. The name 'Doring' is also applied to a stretch of the Sout River, another Olifants tributary, midway through its cours ...

has its sources in this range, contributing substantially to the flow of the Olifants catchment area.

Ecology

The flora of the Koue Bokkeveld is similar to the Cedarberg flora, with mountain

fynbos Fynbos (; , ) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. The area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean climate. The fynbos ...

at high altitudes,

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe Khoemana (also known as !Orakobab or Korana) word is a semidesert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is ...

vegetation on the lower slopes and patches of Mountain cypress. Plants such as the oil bract conebush, a species of ''

Leucadendron ''Leucadendron'' is a genus of about 80 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, endemic to the Cape Provinces and KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where they are a prominent part of the fynbos ecoregion and vegetation type. Desc ...

'', may be found.

Artifacts

There are ancient San

rock paintings In archaeology, rock arts are human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type al ...

at a place called Katbakkies. A

meteorite A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...

crashed on the Koue Bokkeveld in 1838. It is known as the Koue Bokkeveld or Cold Bokkeveld meteorite, and is a CM2 chondrite. Its fragments were dispersed and now most of them have been lost.

References

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External links

Koue Bokkeveld Op-die-Berg Household Rainwater HarvestingZA080 Cedarberg - Koue Bokkeveld complex
Mountain ranges of the Western Cape