Day 23-25: Little Karoo

October 26, 2024

Gorgeous :-)

Straight out of Prince Albert is the Swartzberg Pass (1575m). It’s a bit of a climb, from Prince Albert at around 600m. Stunning gorge in the very north (the first part we saw) and then the road climbs out of the gorge and up and over everything. Not many motorists on the road (mostly tourists). It’s narrow and winding and corrugated. And step, and hot in the sun. It goes up. We got to a place imaginatively named ‘Die Top’, then went down. More scenic on the northern side, so glad we went the way we did (we did spend 3 days getting around the Swartzberg mountains just to ride over this pass). Everyone tells us how good this pass is, and they’re not wrong.

Through the gorge at the beginning of the climb

Exima (broad-leaved protea) flowering at about 1300m.

We took what we thought was a remote dirt road along the southern edge of the Swartzberg mountains. But it was tar for about 12km which ended at a fancy game reserve. Fancy enough that there was giraffe just over the fence from us. That was an easy spot. One big animal – tick.

Standard lunch break....(Stefan and Sabine..so chuffed 🪑 😁 - Stevo is coming round slowly)

The dirt road was pretty good – up and down and corrugated but was pretty easy travelling. We stopped short of our goal of Calitzdorp at a small campsite at Kruisrivier. The caretaker convinced Cath to stop for the night and we spent a few hours doing not a lot. Some of the nothing was patting Milo (the dog), watching the view of the Swartzberg mountains (spoiler: they didn’t do a lot).

Milo...we stopped on the road, he barked at us, we decided to stay, he mooched up for pats. Happy

Next day we completed the trip to Calitzdorp – taking the road that was not only easier (no climbing) but also had the better scenery. Win - win. We bumped into another cyclist in Calitzdorp at the supermarket – Peter (Poland), the same guy we met just as we were leaving Knysna ~1.5weeks ago.

We don't only see snakes trying to cross the road

Riding out of kruisrivier through the Red Stone Hills

Peter headed off to find another mountain to climb (south – the road recommended by at least one other local to us), but we took the R62 toward Ladismith. We don’t know what the other road is like, but this one is great! Tar and a few more cars for sure, but we’ve had some nice climbs, and great views of the Little Karoo the whole way. And great mountain views as well. And it took us past a gorge that we couldn’t resist taking a peek inside: Seweweekspoort.

It was a little hot, but a nice climb out of Calizdorp

We found a campsite in the gorge up against a dam. Dam meant there was plenty of water. And a few mozzies. But we’re safe from the mozzies in the tent and hopefully the rain doesn’t flush us out of the gorge tonight. We didn’t see too much of the gorge before we stopped for the night but should be able to rectify that tomorrow.

Looking back to the road we camped on. Lucky we camped off it to the right near the bush....

As it happened, we weren’t flushed out of the gorge by the rain, but by the Saturday night revellers who were still going at 5am on Sunday morning and decided they wanted to drive to the dam to see the sunrise. It’s quite the wake-up call to have a 4x4 race past your tent at that time of the morning. They played some music, shouted a bit, laughed a bit, climbed up to the dam, managed to turn their vehicle around without running over our tent, then had a slurred chat with us about hiking trips and youtube channels. We wished them well and hoped only that we didn’t come across their vehicle driven into a tree further down the road.

So that meant we were on the road by 6am! What?! No coffee even as the weather had turned and we wanted to ride a little up the gorge before heading on to Ladismith. Stevo can tell you about the Seweweeksport, as I rode a little up the way and decided instead to sit on a rock and wait.

Heading out early for a spin up the port.

The ride to Ladismith, I’m sure was picturesque but the trudge through the head wind (why did we stay in the gorge and not take advantage of yesterday’s tailwind?) was a head down, music/podcast on, grind of 20km of flat that took us 2 hours. Ladismith didn’t offer us much by the time we got there either. The supermarket was closing up as we entered (note: small town supermarkets close at 1pm on Sundays) and due to a forecast for a lot of rain, I wanted a roof over our head, but this was not to be found (for a reasonable price, or even for a unreasonable price). Instead we pushed into the wind for a further 18km and have found ourself in a guesthouse on the R62. Its roomy, its clean, it has a hot shower, a clean kitchen. It’s raining lots outside. We might stay for a couple of days or until we run out of food.

Heart

Comment

Link

Today's ride: 198 km (123 miles)
Total: 867 km (538 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	4
Comment on this entry	Comment	0