The dirt road undulates through the washed-out landscape. Now and then you might spot a springbok or a flustered sheep in the emptiness. Other than that, nothing. No man, no murderer.
There are a few theories about the origin of the name. Firstly, the climate alternates between extreme heat and desperate cold — it can kill you. Another theory is that a group of murderers broke out of jail in Worcester and hid here for years.
Then there’s the grim story about a police officer called Van der Colf, who patrolled the area looking for stock thieves. Apparently he would tie his captives to his horse and make them walk to jail. In his book Timeless Karoo, Jonathan Deal writes: “When Van der Colf became bored, and perhaps a little drunk, he would release the prisoners to run away up a hill — and take potshots at them with his rifle, sometimes with deadly consequences.”
Deal also describes another series of violent events that could have given the Moordenaars Karoo its name. In the 1770s, there was a farm foreman who lived next to the Sak River (near pre-sent-day Williston), who shot Bushmen indiscriminately. When the Bushmen retaliated and murdered the foreman, a commando was sent from the Cape to punish them. Many innocent Bushmen died in the revenge attack. After the commando returned home, Bushmen across the Great Karoo started to plunder farms and murder farmers. Another punitive commando was sent out. Revenge attack upon revenge attack followed and more and more Bushmen perished.
For every back road there’s a CD that just sums up the feeling. For this road you might consider Murder Ballads by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds…