McCarthy’s Rest is the border post en route to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and is the last inhabited place in the Northern Province before the Botswana border. There is no town here, merely isolated game farms in this, one of the most remote areas of South Africa. The far Northern Cape area is commonly known in South Africa as the Kalahari, which is derived from the Tswana word Kgalagadi. It is the largest geopolitical area (province) in South Africa. It is a semi-desert region, which is sparsely populated with the main economic activities being farming and mining.

Mining activities are mainly iron and manganese, with some of the biggest deposits in the world being found there. Any kopje is almost guaranteed to be a deposit of the one mineral or other. McCarthy’s Rest is best reached from Kuruman, from where it is almost a two hundred kilometer drive.