The Jimny needed another adventure, and this particular trip was planned as I had recently heard about the Seweweekspoort Pass through the Swartberg Mountains and was keen to see it. Then I thought, well while we have gone that far why not go to Sutherland to see SALT (South African Large Telescope) and the planning began.
We left Wilderness on a clear-blue-sky if not rather chilly first day of Spring and headed to the Outeniqua Pass which no matter how many times we drive over, we are still amazed at how spectacularly scenic it is. I had bookmarked the Kruisaar farm stall to stop for coffee (there are quite a few farm stalls along the stretch between George and Oudtshoorn),
but it was still quite early so we just mooched around the shop which is packed with locally made goods, slippers, teddy bears, clothes, and of course preserves and baked goods. Bought some local honey (we always check where it is sourced from) and pressed on towards Oudtshoorn. We also bought some chocolate covered honeycomb and scoffed it as soon as we got in the car, so I guess that was breakfast. Made us feel a bit queezy to be honest but was deeply delicious as it stuck to our teeth!
Just as you enter the town of Oudtshoorn, there is a delightful establishment called Smitswinkel, a pub/restaurant/shop/museum/aviary all rolled into one. Had some breakfast here with some half decent coffee. Lots of interesting artefacts to browse.
At the old mission station which is now the village of Zoar is the entrance to the Seweweekspoort pass (our main objective) but our stop for the night, Oaksrest Vineyard, is a little further on the other side of Ladismith, chosen because of my "off the beaten track" mentality, and we were not disappointed. Delightful fully equipped cottage (Crimson Cottage) on the side of a hill overlooking the farm and the valley. Very private, and as the weather had warmed up considerably since the previous weekend (it was minus 11 deg C in Sutherland last week when we were supposed to do this trip but had to postpone), we sat outside on the stoep and had a refreshing beer.
Crimson Cottage, Oaksrest Vineyard
Aloes growing along the pass.
Spectacular rock formations
This road takes you all the way through to Laingsburg which is on the N1 (the floods here happened in 1981, which is hard to believe! I remember it well even though it happened just before I arrived in SA - terribly tragic). Lots of roadworks on this section of the N1 at the moment all the way to and past Matjiesfontein. Here we pulled in for coffee at The Coffee House and had cappuccinos (of course) and breakfast wraps in a lovely garden setting. I love this little town, literally one short street, with a railway station (the luxurious Blue Train stops here), museum, lovely old hotel, and the coffee shop. Pretty much it. We were joined by some friends who were keen to share our breakfast, and were actually pretty rude about it!
And so back home over the Outeniqua Pass again towards George. Practically fell into bed absolutely exhausted but thrilled to have finally done this road trip, and more than pleased with our decision to move to the beautiful Cape!
There are three cottages of various sizes, plus a campsite in between a lake and the vines, all overlooking the valley. We took a walk up to the lake, together with the farms two dogs who seem to have the perfect life.
After a simple bowl of soup and some wine, I enjoyed looking at the stars which were very bright. No moon and a clear sky made for perfect conditions.
Woke up to the sound of the birds and set off for the pass which was a good 30 kms away. This pass is very much like Meiringspoort, which is the pass between De Rust and Klaarstroom on the Eastern side of the Swartberg mountains, but with a gravel/dirt road as opposed to tar, so no trucks and we saw only one other car during the whole 18 kms, which is arguably the most beautiful 18kms in the whole country.
Even after you have driven through the pass, the dirt road continues past typical karoo farms with dams full of water after the recent good rains.
The road to Sutherland from here is not so exciting, lots of very narrow bends, much evidence of rock falls (!) and some potholes. Sutherland is just what you would expect of a Karoo town, one wide street, Cape Dutch buildings, and a couple of restaurants/pubs. We stayed at Kambro Kind which was ok. Dumped our belongings and headed off to SALT (South African Large Telescope) which is about 20 minutes out of town, to tour the facility and see the telescope up close. At 11m in diameter, it is very impressive - there is an exact replica in Texas - so at the moment SALT is the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. Currently there is an even bigger one being built in Chile which will have a diameter of more than 25 metres! There are some smaller scopes around the facility each in its own building, owned and operated remotely from several different countries.
After dinner at the Blue Moon (surprisingly busy for a Monday night in a small town) and some deeply delicious lamb chops we set off once again to do our stargazing at the SALT facility. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, you don't get to look through the big telescope but you do see a mind blowing amount of stars through their large Meade scopes. My best experience of the whole day was seeing Saturn with its rings as sharp as a pin. Very humbling to think we are so tiny and insignificant. Our guide Patrick made our brains explode with all the facts and figures about light years and size of planets. It is hard to comprehend (for me anyway).
Just before we left home I had seen a you tube video about Merweville, and decided it might be nice to go that way home, rather than just going back the way we came. Google maps reckon you can do 80kmph average and it will take about 1h40 to do the 104 kms, so we didn't bother to set off too early in the morning. Do not believe a word of it. The "road" is sometimes nothing more than a rocky path with farm gates that have to be opened and closed. Actually was quite fun.
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| The Merweville NG Kerk |
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| Mountain Reedbuck roaming freely on the pass to Merweville |
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| A step back in time in Merweville! |
Merweville is a typical small Karoo town, spotlessly clean and quaint, and host to very few visitors judging by the puzzled glances we got from the locals! It does boast one of the most attractive NG Kerk churches in the country, and the village was originally formed as a Parish to serve the spiritual needs of the local farmers, so the church has pride of place on the side of a koppie. We were unable to go inside the church unfortunately but it is quite imposing from the outside. The only coffee shop was closed so we did not stick around for too long. The other side of Merweville the road is mercifully tarred and we were able to make faster progress towards Prince Albert.
We were admiring the myriad wild flowers along the roadside on the approach to the town, but these were soon overtaken and eventually replaced by litter, such a shame. The centre of the Prince Albert is lovely, lots of art galleries, artisanal shops, coffee shops and the beautiful Swartberg Hotel taking centre stage. We finally had our coffee!!!! And very nice it was too!
We entered the jawdroppingly steep and winding Swartberg Pass at around 1pm. The pass is 24kms long and has to be taken slowly to avoid slipping over the edge - no guard rails here (Africa ain't for sissies!). They say you can drive it in an hour but there are so many viewsites to stop and admire the geology that you do not want to be in a hurry.
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#swartbergpass
#sutherland
#stargazing
#SALT
#seweweekspoortpass
