Driving along the scenic routes leading from George through the spectacular surroundings of the Garden Route provides an enjoyable and interesting pastime for the whole family during the holidays. When the weather keeps you away from the beach, devote a morning or afternoon to a slow drive along one of the following routes:

Outeniqua Pass

The OUTENIQUA PASS takes you into the mountains and provides magnificent views.    This modern pass was located by P.A. de Villiers, the National Road Board’s location engineer who will always rank as one of the great road builders of South Africa. Its whole conception & execution-bold & majestic-ensures its status as one of the world’s grand road passes & makes it a pleasure to use. The summit (799m above sea level) is reached 14 km from George.

Route to Saasveld

The route to Saasveld where the Forestry School is situated on the outskirts of the Groeneweide State Forest is a must for the visitor. Provides a breathtaking view on the Outeniqua Mountains. Continue past Saasveld on the old road between George & Wilderness for some lovely forest views, finishing at Wilderness Heights. Continue on to view the “MAP OF AFRICA” or go down into Wilderness.

Route from George to Wilderness 

The route from George to Wilderness provides several look-out points. From DOLPHIN’S POINT, one has an incredible view over the ocean, Wilderness beach & the Kaaimans River Mouth with its train bridge. On the eastern side of Wilderness, the ocean and the lakes compete for one’s attention.

Seven Passes Road

The SEVEN PASSES ROAD from George to Knysna takes the traveler through indigenous forest with masses of ferns and trees and fresh mountain streams. A magnificent route. The pass was built by Thomas Bain (it took 15 years to build) & is a National Monument. Drive time for the route is +-2,5 hours (excluding time for sightseeing & picnics). Stop at the BIG TREE at Woodville for a picnic & a short circular walk through a magical forest.

Old road between George & Mossel Bay

On the old road between George & Mossel Bay, visitors can catch a glimpse of some of the loveliest farms in the area with the Outeniqua Mountains providing a lovely backdrop.

Hoekwil

Visit the quaint little settlement of Hoekwil. It is worth driving to the end of the tar road and back.

Drive through Blanco

A drive through BLANCO past the beautiful FANCOURT Golf Estate will take you to the SA Breweries’ Hop farm with its hops plants, a spectacular sight in summer.   Continue on this road to the Geelhoutboom Road & enjoy the beautiful farmlands of George.

Go back in the past by driving over the MONTAGU PASS. It will take your breath away. The pass was named after John Montagu, Colonial Secretary of the Cape in the 1840’s, whose enthusiasm for good roads resulted for the first ambitious program of construction in Southern Africa. This pass was damaged by the floods of November 1996, and was closed for most of 1997. It has been repaired and is now open. There are several look-out points where you can stop to appreciate the flora and some spectacular views. Great train spotting sites for steam enthusiasts. Driving time of +-one hour will take you over the Outeniqua Mountains, through the village of Herold to the Uniondale/George road.

In 1844 some 250 convicts started with the construction of the pass and it was opened for traffic in December 1847. The passage over the mountains, which used to take a full three days over the Cradock Pass, could now be accomplished within three hours (today it hardly takes 15 minutes by car!) Henry Fancourt White, an experienced road engineer from Australia, was in charge of the work. His name is perpetuated in the lovely Fancourt Estate and in the village of Blanco (originally called White’s Village).

On your way up, you’ll pass the Old Tollhouse where once the toll of one penny per wheel and one penny per ox had to be paid. This historic building, declared a National Monument, is currently in a bad state having been vandalised. “Keurrivier se brug” further on has also been declared a National Monument. Note the original stone wall all along the pass. The name boards tell interesting tales. The narrowest part of the pass with overhanging cliffs was called “Die Noute” Here wagons could not pass abreast. Further on is “Regop Trek”, the steepest part of the road. Where the road passes underneath the railway bridge, you have “Stinkhoutdraai” where stinkwood trees used to grow in profusion. In this way the pass continues, until, at last, you reach the hotel at North Station. The oldest part of the building dates back to 1840. Driving up the Montagu Pass today one becomes nostalgic visualising the old transport riders labouring up the pass in their heavily laden wagons.

The Outeniqua were named after the Hottentot tribe who formerly lived there. This pleasant name means “the men laden with honey”, as the Hottentots used to remove huge stones of honey from the swarms of bees flourishing on the nectar of the wild flowers growing on the mountain slopes.
The Outeniqua Mountain Range, rising to 1 579m on George Peak, acts as the barrier between the coastal terrace and the unique world of the Little Karoo, the basin which acts as an intermediate step up to the central South African plateau. The problem of crossing the barrier of the Outeniqua has provided travelers and road builders with no little exertion.

Glentana coastal road 

For great ocean views, take a ride along the Glentana coastal road.

The Montagu Pass

The Montagu Pass is the 4th pass over the Outeniqua Mountain Range. The first Europeans to cross this range consisted of a party led by Izaak Schryver. Hykon, then chief of the Inkwa tribe of Hottentots, living near the modern town of Aberdeen, had sent messengers to Cape Town in 1687 offering to trade, and the result of this was Schryver’s expedition. In January 1689 he led his men over the mountains, following an ancient elephant path through what was known as Attaqua’s Kloof where the Hottentot tribe of that name once lived. Attaqua’s Kloof remained for years the regular pass through the Outeniqua. It lay just to the wet of the modern Robinson Pass in the area of the Ruiterbos Forestry Station, but it has now reverted to an overgrown and forgotten track.

A second pass over the Outeniqua lay east of George. This climbed the slopes of the 1 113m-high Duiwelsberg (Devil’s mountain) and descended the northern slopes of the Outeniqua into the Long Kloof. This old pass, known as the Duiwelskloof Pass, with its splendid scenery (like Attaqua’s Kloof) is no longer used but provides a fascinating walk for those energetic enough to follow its route from the modern forestry settlement of Bergplaats.

The 3rd pass over the Outeniqua was built in 1812 after the establishment of George. This pass, known as Cradock Kloof (in honour of the Governor, Sir John Cradock), was built by the first magistrate of George, Adrianus van Kervel. It was an appalling 8-km-long climb. From the view-site at the toposcope on the Outeniqua Pass it is easy to see the route that the Cradock Kloof Pass follows. Its course is clearly marked by whitewashed cairns erected during the time of the Voortrekker Centenary. The pass climbs steeply up a shoulder of the mountain on the right, crosses the railway line in a clump of trees, and then rises in a fierce gradient to the summit. This was a dreadful pass & travelers’ complains about it were incessant.

The Passes Road

The prodigious difficulties encountered by road engineers in the building of the great coastal trunk road between Cape town & Durban are perfectly illustrated by the complex stretch of country encountered between George & Knysna. Here, between the mountains and the sea, there is a narrow belt of country averaging 24km in width. It consists of a plateau terrace at the foot of the mountains, falling sharply to a narrow coastal belt of lakes and lagoons. The terrace is deeply bisected by the gorges & ravines of successive streams and rivers and to add the these formidable barriers the well-watered landscape (with a rainfall of up to 2 450mm a year on the mountains) is densely wooded with luxuriant primeval forests, tangles of shrubbery and such masses of wild flowers, heath and creepers as to fully justify its description as the GARDEN OF SOUTH AFRICA.

To fully appreciate the difficulties of the road engineers and the way they surmounted them, take (before following the great highway of today) the earlier alternative route known as the PASSES ROAD, which was the first link between George & Knysna. This gravel road is maintained in excellent condition as it feeds several important forestry stations as well as providing tourists with a fascinating & leisurely scenic drive.

The PASSES Road branches off from the modern Garden Route 3km outside George. It immediately leads into difficult roadmakers’ country with a 3-km-long descent into the valley of the Swart (black) River. Inn former times this descent was a nightmare. The first wagon track simply slithered almost straight into the valley and with their wheels “remmed” (braked with blocks), the wagons wore the road into a channel more than 2m deep and so narrow that a man could not pass between the banks and the sides of the vehicle. Down this chute the wagons went with a loud cracking of whips by the drivers to warn any travelers not to start coming up in the other direction, for a firs-class disaster would occur if tow wagons encountered each other on the pass.

This hazardous pass and the rest of the pioneer trunk road to the east became so notorious that eventually in 1861, a select committee was set up to investigate the matter. As a result, work at last began on the first properly made road between George & Knysna in 1867. The famous Thomas Bain had the task of locating & constructing the new road and the Passes Road is substantially his work. He must have had a fascinating and energetic time sorting out the difficulties of the route, and a great deal of satisfaction in seeing it completed.

The Passes Road crosses the Swart River & then descends to the Kaaimans (alligator’s) River. This is now an easy descent but before the engineering of Thomas Bain, it required the labours of 32 oxen to effect a wagon crossing of the murderous gradient and torrent which often ran so wild that travelers were delayed for days on end. No sooner is the road across the Kaaimans river than it has to cross the Silver River in a pretty pass & then climb 1,5km up to a crossroads at a little rural post office and store known as Ginnesville, 14km from George. From here White’s Road branches down to the coast at Wilderness.

Six km east of Ginnesville the road traverses the thickly wooded Touw River valley. Six km further on (26km from George) the road reaches the turnoff forest stations of Woodville, Bergplaas & Kleinplaat. If one has the time it is worth turning aside here. For 16km the road burrows through the forest right up close to the mountains where the forestry settlements of Bergplaas & Kleinplaatjie. From here the energetic can follow the original road, now quite disused, which gave up the struggle with the river crossings and made its way over the mountains via the pass known as duiwelskop and descended on the northern side of the range into the Long Kloof.

1,5km before Woodville there is a turnoff north leading to an enormous yellowwood tree, 600 years old, 31m high with a girth of 9m.

Bain completed the Homtini Pass in 1882. It is a classic piece of old-time roadmaking with dramatic views and the indefinable elegance of its curves. The river itself is a gorgeous torrent of amber water, tumbling down from the deep forests of the mountain slopes to the north. All travelers along this road should turn aside at some stage in their journey and drive into the primeval forest. An excellent opportunity occurs 1,5km beyond the east summit of the Homtini Pass. Here, just where the tarmac starts, there is a road branching off to the GOUDVELD forestry Station. Take this side road.

A most entrancing drive runs along a good gravel track which tunnels through the tall indigenous trees. After 3km there is a junction. Take the Jubilee track to the left. A thick carpet of ferns covers the verges of the road & the trees meet overhead. Another 3km further on a sign directs the traveler to the left for 1,5km down a track to a picnic site on the banks of an exquisite little stream known as Forest Creek. Here gold was prospected in former times and a “tail” of yellow dust can still be found in a pan today if one tries one’s luck. The track continues across the creek for 1,5km to Natbos where there is a picnic site in the shade of a gigantic 400-year-ok yellowwood tree and then ends at another picnic site at Droërug.

Back on the main track, continue out of the indigenous forest through a plantation and after 3km the road reaches the forestry settlement of Millwood. Here, in the late 1880’s there was a bustling town of prospectors and gold diggers. One thousand men rushed into this sylvan area in 1886 when alluvial gold was found in several of the streams by an inspector of roads, C.F. Osborne. On 6 August 1886 John Courtney found reef gold in the overlooking hills and excitement reached a fine pitch. By the end of 1887 the town of Millwood had 7 hotels, 25 shops, 3 banks, 7 butcher’s, 4 baker’s, a police station, post office, 3 newspapers and 40 mining syndicates. Today nothing remains & one has to search & scramble to find the foundations of the houses, the rusty machinery, the caved-in excavations. The gold was there, but only enough to tantalise. The prospectors went broke. The heath, the trees, the wild flowers and mountains reclaimed their own, and all that is left today is the ghost of a vanished town. The Oudtshoorn Mine was the most promising venture on the Millwood field. When it proved a failure, the spirit went out of the rush. Millwood was so named after an overshot sawmill waterwheel originally run there by a Mr. Franzen.

The main Passes Road (now tarmac), continue for 6km over a fertile plateau with many fine views of the mountains and the long belt of forest. Then the road reaches a turnoff. The tarmac road sweeps on the Keytersnek & Knysna, 13km away. The Passes Road reverts to a gravel surface & turns sharply left. For 3km it descends steeply down the Phantom Pass (so named after the phantom moths common there), rewarding the traveler with charming views of the delightfully green & completely rural valley of the Knysna river lying below. From the bottom of the pass the road runs for a further 5km along the banks of the river and then joins the modern coastal road just before it bridges across the upper end of the Knysna Lagoon.

By modern standards, this old road is quite inadequate except for sightseeing. When the modern road came to be built, P.A. de Villiers ((that prince of location engineers) abandoned the plateau terrace entirely & boldly took the road from George straight down to the sea, blasting and cutting a spectacular route through country totally impossible to the old-time engineers. In the process of this construction a classic example was presented of the changes which can be brought to an area by a new road. The whole coastal stretch from George to Knysna was completely transformed by this road.

From a remote wilderness of bush & lake it developed within a few years of the coming of the road into a lotus land of pleasure and recreation with a considerable industry in hotel, motels & caravan parks. (From DISCOVERING SOUTH AFRICA by T.V. Bulpin: p 295 – p298)

Spectacular Pass – Meiringspoort

Named after PETRUS JOHANNES MEIRING, who owned the farm DE RUST which was situated at the southern entrance to the pass. In 1854 when the renowned roadmaker,, Andrew Geddes Bain, was trying to find a route for a road with which to link the Great and Little Karoos, Petrus Meiring drew his attention to the great ravine penetrating the range from his farm. Bain rode through the pass and considered it to be ideal. The entire ravine had been worn through the range by escaping floodwaters which resulted from occasional downpours in the Great Karoo.

The draining stream, simply known as the GROOTSTROOM (great stream), had eroded for itself a reasonable level floor littered with giant boulders and overlooked by colossal precipices. Any road made through the ravine would have to cross and re-cross the stream 26 times, but the route was perfectly practical and just the type of pass which Bain loved: grand and majestic to behold, with brilliantly coloured sedimentary sandstone precipices, and the whole place full of odd rock shapes and echoes.

On 3 MARCH 1858 Meiringspoort was opened to traffic and was considered to be such an asset to the farmers of the Great Karoo, who could now send their produce through the mountains to be shipped from Mossel Bay, that a party of 300 horsemen and 50 carts carrying ladies, made an opening tour through the pass.

Meiringspoort remains one of the most romantically lovely of all South African road passes. It is 12,9km long from its northern to its southern entrance & scenically , is beautiful and interesting. There are many pleasant picnic sites & resting places where the motorist can pause a while and admire the towering cliffs with their fantastic patterns of warped and twisted rocks, numerous flowering plants and rugged piles of boulders.

Three kilometres beyond the southern entrance to Meiringspoort lies the hamlet of DE RUST.

The Swartberg

The range whose foothills contain the Kango Caves is the Swartberg (black mountain) which provides a 200-km-long barrier between the Little & Great Karoos. It is one of the most beautiful and spectacular mountain massifs in Southern Africa. To the Bushmen the range was known as the KANGO (water mountains) from the number of streams which had their source on its slopes. The highest point of the range is the SEVEN WEEKS POORT MOUNTAIN, 2 326m above sea level.

The range, notwithstanding its name of Swartberg, is composed of red-coloured sedimentary sandstone, warped and twisted into many extraordinary shapes, and coloured still further by the presence of yellow lichens growing on the precipice faces. Visually, this magnificent range is in many parts overwhelmingly beautiful. It glows with a rich warmth of colour, reminiscent of an active volcano which is in the process of cooling. In fact, the only way to picture some of the great gorges and river passages – notably Seven Weeks Poort – is to poker across the embers of a dying fire; the passage left by the pokier, glowing red and orange on either side in all manner of surprising shapes and beautiful tones, would not be more colourful than Seven Weeks Poort or the precipices of Meirings Poort.

The Swartberg has had a curiously romantic history. A typical tale about these mountains dates from the period of the Anglo-Boer War. A band of Boer guerrillas raiding into the Little Karoo, found themselves hotly pursued by British soldiers. They determined to cross the Swartberg & to escape into the vast spaces of the Great Karoo where they hoped to rejoin the main body of their commando, led by General Smuts.

Since the passes through the mountains were all closely guarded by the British, the raiders decided to lead their horses directly over the range. They set out to climb the great heights, the horses struggling up the cliff faces and the men sustained by the thought of reaching the summit ridge and then being able to look north into the safety of the Great Karoo. Darkness came before the men had reached the summit, and clouds swept up & enveloped the heights by the time the men finally arrived at the top. Too cold to sleep & with everything too damp to enable them to light a fire, they sat shivering until dawn. They then started to grope their way down the northern face of the mountains which was shrouded in dense mist. It was not until nearly 16h00 that they descended out of the clouds. They expected to find themselves looking down on the Great Karoo, but instead, they were astounded to find beneath them a long, narrow canyon, hemmed in by precipices. On the floor of this ravine 305m below, they could see a few primitive looking mud huts scattered about amongst the aloes and the bush.

Thinking that some tribe of Hottentots must have found a retreat in this eerie place, the Boers left their horses in a ravine and in a body went down to investigate, reaching the bottom just after sunset. As they approached the nearest hut a shaggy giant of a white man, heavily bearded and dressed in goatskins like Robinson Crusoe, appeared and spoke to them in a strange, long drawn out outlandish type of Dutch. He introduced himself as Cordier, who lived in the house with his wife and a brood of half wild children. He knew all about the visitors, for one of his sons had been up in the mountains that morning. Hearing the sound of men and horses, he had stalked the party in the mist, observed their numbers and then slipped down to report to his father.

Cordier was the head of a small community living in the ravine. He offered the visitors a rough but kindly hospitality, feeding them goat’s milk and wild honey. He had vaguely heard of the Anglo-Boer War, but none of the contestants, either British or Boer, had ever penetrated this valley of isolation in the Swartberg.

Cordier guided them out along secret paths across the rugged mountains, until at last they looked down on the northern plains, and so made their escape across the barrier of the Swartberg. This account of how the secret valley was discovered appears in the book COMMANDO, by Deneys Reitz.

The history of this hill-billy community was strange. According to them, a party of trekboers (nomadic farmers) had been wandering along the northern slopes of the Swartberg at the beginning of the 19th century. Smelling water & sweet grazing in the hidden valley, a number of domestic animals owned by the migrant farmers stampeded during the night and found their way through the gorge forced through the Swartberg by the Gamka river which flows directly across the concealed valley. Following the tracks of their missing livestock, the trekboers discovered the valley and were delighted with its perennial water and the farming possibilities of its alluvial soil. It was uninhabited, although the presence of the numerous paintings in caves as well as wooden peg ladders reaching up the precipice faces to wild hives, were proof of the original existence of Bushmen.

The nomadic farmers ended their wandering forthwith and settled in what became known as GAMKAS KLOOF or DIE HEL (the abyss). Eventually 16 small farms were occupied in the valley, and the owners, shut in by the mountains and increasingly disinterested in the outside world, became self dependent, living entirely on the produce of their farms, making their own clothes and indulging in their one luxury – a potent alcoholic beverage made from wild honey.

In 1921 the Dutch Reformed Church established a school in the valley and since then the inhabitants have developed a cash crop of hanepoot grapes which they dry into raisins and convey out of the valley to sell to the outside world. On the proceeds they purchase clothing, sugar, coffee and a few other luxuries. In 1962 a hair-raising road which twists, rises & falls was made into the valley, thereby allowing the advent of representatives of burial societies, insurance agents, sellers of encyclopaedias and politicians at election time, into this once lost valley.

For the tourist there are some magnificent drives through the Swartberg. One and a half kilometres before the main road terminates at the Cango Caves, there is turnoff to the west, sign posted Prince Albert. This road leads along the southern slopes of the Swartberg through 27km of ruggedly attractive country where the towering mountains may be viewed from many angles. After 27km the road reaches a turnoff which leads to Kruisrivier & eventually to Calitzdorp. Then it starts to climb the Swartberg Pass, without a doubt one of the most sensational road passes in Africa. The road ascends steadily for 7km passing magnificent mountain slopes covered in watsonias and proteas. Eventually, 1 568m above sea level (over 1 220m above the level of the Little Karoo) the road crosses a saddle on the summit ridge of the range. If the southern side of this pass has been scenically exciting, then the northern side can be classed as sensational.

The road immediately commences a most involved descent. Just below the summit ridge, in a stand of pine trees, lie the ruins of the old building originally erected to shelter convict labourers employed on the construction of the pass between 1881 & 1888 by Thomas Bain, son of the famous Andrew Geddes Bain, builder of Bain’s Kloof Pass in the Western Cape. This ruined building is reputedly haunted by the ghosts of many unfortunate travelers caught in the snowstorms which often block the pass in winter. Just beyond the old building, 1,5km from the summit of the pass, the road crosses a perennial stream of crystal clear , ice cold water around which may be seen many lovely watsonias in spring.

Directly beyond the stream is a forestry station, while 1,5km further on , a turnoff provides a rough, wild and woolly switchback railway type drive to Gamkaskloof (57km to the west). This road to the secluded valley is not to be carelessly followed, but for those prepared to drive with caution, it yields many remarkable views with a final descent into the valley that is breathtaking.

The Swartberg Pass continues to descend for 10km with zigzags, serpentines, twists & stiff gradients carrying it down the face of a flame-coloured precipice. The road then winds out of the mountains through a canyon full of echoes, the rock strata of which is warped and arched, and daubed with splashes of vivid colour as though nature, putting on overalls and preparing to turn painter, had tested brushes and colour effects against the rocks.

Ten km from the northern entrance of the Swartberg Pass, the road enters the little town of Prince Albert, a small gem with beautifully preserved Cape Dutch, Karoo & Victorian buildings of which 19 are National Monuments. Activities for visitors include a GUIDED HISTORICAL WALK through the town, a well marked “KOPPIE TRAIL” with almost 100 listed plants, fossil hunting & stargazing, a tractor trail to the olive farm, traditional Karoo meals & a visit to the delightful FRANSIE PIENAAR MUSEUM. From Prince Albert there is a road eastwards leading back to the Little Karoo through the Swartberg.