Kathu Area Information

Kathu at a glance

Kathu, Kalahari

At a glance

Province:  Northern Cape

Municipality: Gamagara

Popular suburbs: Kalahari Golf and Jag Landgoed

Coordinates: 27.42° S 23° 03'E

Population (census 2011): 11 510

Main attractions and recreation

Kathu has a golf course and a small, well-stocked adjoining game reserve. The town has a well-established sporting complex, including tennis courts, swimming pool and a golf course. One of the tennis courts is named after veteran tennis player Herta Hegewisch.

Very popular game farms and hunting activities are in close proximity to Kathu.

Camel Thorn Tree Forest

The Camel Thorn tree (Acacia Erioloba) forest is one of only two in the world - the other located between Mariental and Rehoboth in Namibia. Its unique nature was recognised in the early 1920s when it was declared a state forest. In 1995 it was registered as a Natural Heritage Site.

The Kathu forest is approximately 4, 000 hectares in size and these Camel Thorn trees provide support for large Sociable Weaver's nests and are used by many other bird and animal species. In fact, surveys have shown a moderate to high diversity in animal and plant species, including several Red Data, endemic and protected species in and around the forest. Bigger trees in the forest are reckoned to be older than 300 years.

Mining

The town and the accompanying industrial area of Sishen came into being because of iron ore mining activity in the Kalahari - it has one of the five largest open-cast iron ore mining operations in the world.

The primary drilling and 'load and haul' mining equipment used by the mine include giant ore trucks that bear about 260 ton of ore with each load. Mining shovels used to load these trucks can weigh in excess of 800 tons and drilling equipment include drills that can drill up to 400 mm holes for blasting purposes. Some of the world's longest ore trains travel through harsh territory on the Sishen-Saldanha railway to offload their cargo at Saldanha Bay. Kumba Iron Ore is the principal mine operator in Kathu.

Leapfrog Office Contact Details

Owners (Leapfrog Property Group Kalahari): Barend Botha and Rensche Fraser

Contact numbers: 076 655 2484 / 083 554 7348

Email addresses: barend.botha@leapfrog.co.za / rensche.fraser@leapfrog.co.za

Kathu: town under the trees

Kathu is a town in South Africa, and the iron ore capital of the Northern Cape province. The phrase "the town under the trees" was coined by an engineer working in the town in the early-1990s as part of a tourist marketing drive. It was intended to be a marketing slogan. The meaning of the word "Kathu" has anecdotally been attributed to a porridge brewed by the local population from the powder found in the pods of the Camel Thorn trees.

Kathu was founded in the late-1960s or early-1970s and is perfectly situated between Upington and Vryburg with about a 2-hour drive to each of these towns. Kimberley is a 3-hour drive away.

Reasons to invest in property in Kathu

(Source credit: Property 24)

There has been some speculation that there might be another mining boom in the Northern Cape thanks to the province's rich supply of minerals that are often used in the manufacturing of new technology, such as zinc, nickel, lead, copper and cobalt. Kumba Iron Ore, one of the major mining companies in this region, also recently announced that their headline earnings for the first half of the year had increased by 239% to R10.1 billion, largely owing to higher iron ore prices. These recent developments spell good news for the property market in surrounding areas.

Currently, properties priced below R1.6 million are selling best within this market. Should the Northern Cape's mining sector continue to grow and expand, investors stand to make a sizable return on investment by buying property within mining towns such as Kathu now before prices climb.

Photo source credit: https://golfcentral.co.za/directory/golf-courses/northern-cape/sishen-golf-club/