Many South Africans seem to believe that in order to experience ancient cultural relics and spiritually enlightened societies, they have to travel to distant shores thousands of kilometres away.

We take gap-years backpacking through Europe to traipse through Impressionist museums and medieval cathedrals or just to "find ourselves".

We look for meaning in Tibetan Buddhist retreats and for mystery on the Inca Trail.

Meanwhile we neglect the incredible cultural heritage that surrounds us literally at every turn in this country. Possibly the most fascinating and enigmatic example of this is the astonishing rock art that can be found throughout South Africa.

I was reminded of this during a recent trip to the Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve & Retreat in the stunning Cederberg Mountains, just three hours north of Cape Town.

The reserve doubles as the world's largest open air art gallery.

With more than 130 documented sites, it boasts perhaps the greatest density of Stone Age rock paintings anywhere in the world.

During our three days at Bushmans Kloof, our friendly, enthusiastic and eminently knowledgeable guides introduced us to the beautiful clusters of paintings at the "Elephant Hunt" and "Brandhoek" sites.

I was blown away. To come face-to-face with the delicate, often naïve, but wonderfully expressive ochre paintings of dancers, hunters, praying mantis-like "goddess" figures, eland, zebras... it was breath-taking.

One of the things that made Bushmans Kloof so special for me is that the landscape and the flora and fauna have remained relatively unchanged since the mysterious artists - the now extinct /Xam (rough pronunciation: "tsum") - lived here.

Taking a short hike through the mountains on my own one afternoon it was easy to imagine that the paintings I came across in a small rock shelter had been worked on by a /Xam shaman on the previous day, not as long as 8000 years ago!

Although we know precious little about the artists themselves or the motivation behind their creations, one of the things that struck me most about the paintings while I was sitting in the dusty ground next to them was how close their creators' relationship with nature, and especially wildlife, must have been.

Imagine the rich and intimate spiritual connection underpinning this art?

It occurred to me that on both counts these "primitive" people were significantly more advanced than we, their "civilised" 21st Century cousins, are.

I came home from the trip mentally and spiritually re-charged, as well as incredibly excited about the knowledge that I didn't have to fly "overseas" to experience such a truly ancient, thoroughly mysterious and totally awe-inspiring heritage.