The Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre depicts the setting in the area around Nieu Bethesda 253 million years ago during the Permian Period. The centre showcases the fossils found both in Nieu Bethesda and in other places in South Africa. The fossils date to a time 50 million years before the age of dinosaurs when the continents were merged in a supercontinent called Pangea.

A visit to the Fossil Exploration Centre will be a journey back in time to a world with unfamiliar plants and animals. There are life-size models of prehistoric animals that roamed the area and illustrations of the landscape without grasses, flowers, mammals and birds. This was the time when mammal ancestors called Therapsids were the dominant species on earth.