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But no one is here for the minerals. These revelers come in
search of a different kind of rock.
Oppikoppi, Afrikaans for "hilltop", is South Africa's take on
California's Coachella or Britain's Glastonbury, with its roots
firmly in Afrikaans rock and folk music.
As with many aspects of the self-styled "Rainbow Nation", much
has changed in the two decades since apartheid, and the festival
now attracts South Africans of every hue.
Though still predominantly Afrikaans, a broad array of South
Africa's eleven languages are spoken in the crowds and sung from
stages in scenes unthinkable to the rigidly conservative,
race-based regime that yielded to Nelson Mandela in 1994.
Like Glastonbury, Oppikoppi revels in pushing the boundaries of
taste and acceptability, with one popular act this year being a
band called "Satanic Dagga Orgy", who sing in English - dagga
being the South African term for marijuana.
"We have a much more diverse crowd these days," Oppikoppi
organizer Carel Hoffmann, who once worked as an engineer at a
nearby platinum mine, told Reuters. "Many of the things we are
doing the old regime would never have allowed."
The music has also changed, with hiphop and its South African
township version, known as kwaito, added to the staple of
Afrikaans guitar and vocals.
There is no danger of a washout, as so often happens with
Glastonbury, as August is deep in South Africa's dry season.
Oppikoppi's defining color is ochre brown and the chant of
hard-core festival-goers "In dust we trust".
From humble beginnings, with just 300 music-lovers in 1994,
Oppikoppi has grown to become a sprawling temporary settlement
surrounding a ring of large stages.
This year it attracted 20,000 festival-goers, and with nothing
except a few platinum mines dotting the horizon, organizers
expect it to keep on growing.
Most people camp in a crowded dustbowl called "Mordor", so named
to distinguish it from the relative luxury of the "tented
hotels".
One such an establishment, billing itself "The Last Resort",
prides itself on its "0.5 star" status - complete with luxuries
such as phone chargers and portable toilets.
(Reporting by TJ Strydom; Editing by Ed Cropley)
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