Great Mountain Passes of the Little Karoo
So what’s your favourite South African mountain pass? Have you ever tried the alternate Route 62, where the knuckles occasionally go white? Come along, then…
Text & Photographs by CHRIS MARAIS
So I’m standing here at Witperde Drift deep in the Meiringspoort some time ago, perving at the amazing Cape Fold Mountains about me. Some folk stare at these striations and feel like they’re looking right into the soul of the Swartberg range. Or, if you’re shallow like me, you just get dizzy.
Geologists will tell you that this long line of abrupt peaks used to be part of the sea floor. But 120 million years ago, their geological ordeal began: aeons of stretching, thrusting, rifting, down-warping, uplifting, buckling, sagging, squeezing and weathering have given them the appearance of flaky pastry.
I’m paying homage to this giant Salvador Dali in quartzite when Diesel Demon comes around the corner, growling like a spook lorry out of a Stephen King novel. Sometimes, all it takes to make a good photograph is to simply lift the camera and go Click! Thank you, DD.
Virgin Sheep of Klaarstroom
Moving right along through De Rust, we come to Klaarstroom, home of the late Virgin Sheep Sterretjie – but that story is for another campfire. I like to watch this little hamlet wake up in the mornings. There’s a really grand viewing spot on a hillock overlooking the cop station, and from here you can see the pure magnificence of the Swartberg Sweep at first light. And, of course, one can wave to Sterretjie’s kids down below.
Thomas Bain Country
Our next brief stop is the village of Prince Albert. Yes, I know it’s not technically in the Little Karoo. It’s the bottom border of the Great Karoo. But we’re just getting fuel and meaty pies here and moving right along up the fabulous Swartberg Pass. Which is kind of in the Little Karoo, if you squint right.
Listen. If you’ve never been up and over the Swartberg Pass, you cannot talk mountains, road-building, proteas or cute cambers with me.
Thomas Bain, the “Man with the Theodolite Eyes” is the genius behind the Swartberg Pass. With a gang of 200-odd convicts, a whole lot of pickaxes and gunpowder, Bain tackled the job. He finished ahead of time, and Scotsman that he was, economically under budget. The dry stone walling his convicts erected in 1886 remains miraculously intact to this day.
Driving through the pass, you realise what a clever fellow this Mr Bain was. He and his scallywags created a road that sings in harmony with its camber, a human masterpiece seamlessly superimposed on a natural wonder.
Hard Road
Then, of course, there’s the road down into De Hel, which starts from somewhere near the top of the Swartberg Pass. Only once you’ve done this road – especially the last four klicks down into the Gamka’s Kloof – can you really appreciate Thomas Bain. That’s because this is a dog of a road, and I’m sorry for the Oomie that built it, but I always end up cursing him when I chug down there. It just doesn’t hang right.
Of course, merely being down in De Hel, staying over in one of the CapeNature cottages and meeting Annetjie Joubert at the trading store makes up for all of that. But we’re back on the Pass Safari, so pay for your mooimeisie pickles and let’s be on our way. As we go, I’ll tell you a story, just to keep your mind off the rocky road.
The first time I visited the Swartberge, Dr Manie Coetzee was the flying doctor of Prince Albert. Manie lived with a Miss South Africa finalist in a converted old church and often flew a Tiger Moth into the Gamkaskloof. He liked to tell the story about the day he rescued a local honey farmer in Die Hel called Karel Cordier. Oom Karel was busy castrating his donkey when the beast took severe umbrage and bit him.
On that day, Oom Karel was faced with his two worst nightmares: flying in an aeroplane and being injected. When he refused to climb in, Manie threatened him with the kind of needle and syringe normally used on Clydesdales. So he made his choice and they were airborne within the hour. The donkey bite healed quite nicely.
Red Stone Hills
After a swing through the Swartberg Pass, we drive through Kruisrivier and into a Farmer Brown world of crooked fenceposts, rolling green valleys, cow-eyed cows, rampant geese and overnight cottages. We’re on a mission to get to Calitzdorp via the Red Stone Hills, extraordinary outcrops of Enon Conglomerate.
After some port retail therapy at Boplaas Cellars in Calitzdorp, we are in the Seweweekspoort Pass, in a giant cathedral of Cape Fold Mountains. The Seweweekspoort actually does not exist on some roadmaps.
This is a barefoot beauty of a poort. It’s not as artfully built as The Swartberg. It doesn’t have all the fabulous rest stops that Meiringspoort does. But it’s just so mind-bogglingly beautiful it takes your breath away.
Farm Labourer Chic
We take the Rouxpos road west. On the way, we encounter another architectural phenomenon: Farm Labourer Cottage Chic. The way these little cottages cantilever themselves so perfectly against the hillsides, along the roads, in the mountain clefts and on hilltops makes you want to rush in, light a fire and crack open that Boplaas port. Bite into some fine cheese and break out in joyous song.
Our next pass-through town is Ladismith, where you go for wine, dried fruit and Towerkop cheese, named after one of the most remarkable mountain peaks in southern Africa.
Witches with Blasters
Towerkop, I still see it in my mind’s eye. Driving through the district, Towerkop looms constantly. The double-pinnacle of Towerkop was said to have been created when an angry witch split the peak in two with a blast from her bunker-busting wand. No one could ever climb the west side of Towerkop, until a 19-year-old farmer boy called Gustaf Nefdt made it to the summit in 1885 and left one of his socks under a rock as proof. But his mates did not believe him, so he had to climb up again and fetch said sock.
And then we’re off the R62 once more, down a deserted dirt road to Vanwyksdorp. The Rooiberg Pass, connecting us back to the R62, doesn’t look like much at first. It’s just a gravel road winding through the mountains. But then scenes of great beauty appear in cinematic fashion, calling for you to stop, inhale and marvel.
Cape Fold Mountains
We make Barrydale by sunset and check into the Tradouw Guesthouse, a funky-stylish sort of place with a pretty courtyard and an interesting dining room. I do a dawn shoot above the town the next morning and we finish the bucolic route to Montagu with little incident. I find a huge tree filled with feeding herons and egrets in the middle of town and spend far too long taking far too many pictures of the birds.
But that’s not the end of our road. The next morning after breakfast, just outside Montagu, we stop at Kogman’s Kloof. Where the mountains really go folding…
Enquiries:
- www.route62.co.za
- Please Note: Sometimes the Swartberg Pass is closed due to flooding or snowfall. Best check with www.diehel.co.za
