The Augrabies Falls National Park is a stony, otherworldly place. When the Orange River is in full flood, the unrelenting roar of the falls can be heard kilometres away.

In the late South African travel writer TV Bulpin's estimation, there are six great waterfalls in the world. Of these, some are feminine in their natural beauty - the Victoria Falls being "Queen of them all", with her soft, intensely green, personalised rainforest.

The Augrabies, on the other hand, is "is essentially masculine - ruthless and brutal in a harsh and fearsomely arid landscape".

Its name is from the Nama word !oukurubes, which means "the noise-making place". When the Orange River is in full flood, the unrelenting roar of the 56-metre-high Augrabies falls can be heard 40km away.

The Orange River is a fascinating waterway, winding from its source in the moist highlands of the eastern Malutis and Drakensberg mountains through the hot semi-deserts of the Karoo and Kalahari to the icy Atlantic. Nowhere is the river more spectacular than here, in the Augrabies Falls National Park.

Augrabies has long intrigued diamond hunters. There are enduring rumours that a fortune in diamonds has washed down the river over aeons, accumulating in the huge and dangerous pool just below the falls. Interestingly enough, an ancient Nama legend has it that a Great Snake lives in this "wonder hole". It has...