Home / Bike Rides / Karoo Bike Ride - Oct 2012 275
Day One of our bike trip through the Karoo up to and including Ladismith... this was an easy leg on tar road via Barrydale. We stayed at Die Withuisie which was a single cottage wedged between two vineyards on a farm outside Ladismith. The moon was so bright that we took a moonlit walk to the farm dam that evening (and I recorded a short video clip of the frogs that were calling loudly)...
Day Two of our bike trip through the Karoo from Ladismith to The Hell.... ride to Oudtshoorn was on tar with good weather and we had lunch in Oudtshoorn... after leaving Oudtshoorn we headed for the Swartberg Pass. Here we left the tar road and climbed steeply up the gravel road but light rain had set in and low cloud meant that at the higher altitudes we were in thick mist with a visibility of about 20 metres. We did manage to still find a geocache on the way before we turned off onto the road towards The Hell.... this road is about 48km long and despite a light drizzle, a few shallow river crossings, and some tight turns the road was pretty good until the last sharp descent into The Hell.... what a road - it was largely single vehicle width with 170 degree tight turns and descending very steeply. Most of it had to be ridden in first gear to prevent the brakes over heating and with no barriers on the side (and a pillion) I could not chance over balancing on turns... But despite this we got down without any mishap.... The REAL excitement started on Day 3 on our way out (something we will probably never forget)...
Day Three of our bike trip through the Karoo... travelling from The Hell to Sutherland. What a battle to get out of The Hell after heavy rains overnight had severed the only telephone line, flooded the streams, and turned the gravel roads to very slippery wet clay where even your boots could not get any grip. Remember that the first mountain pass road out of The Hell is basically a single track (with no walls) that climbs steeply upwards with 170 degree switch back blind turns (bad enough in the dry, and a nightmare in the wet). But that road was not the worst of our problems... the wet clay for about 30km onwards had to be negotiated mostly in 1st and 2nd gear with Chantel walking some stretches as we could either not see around corners or I was struggling to keep the bike upright... one stretch was so slippery that when the bike veered left in the soft clay and my boots had no grip, I deliberately dropped the bike against the tall sand wall on the side of the road to prevent falling and struggling to pick the bike up without any grip for my boots... the cloud was at least high so we had good visibility.
Finally we cleared The Hell and got onto the beautiful Swartberg Pass that winds through the majestic Swartberg Mountains. What a stunning road and the gravel was more sandy and in better riding condition.
From there through Prince Albert (where we had a pricey and very long to prepare roll) and on to Sutherland. Chantel got a big shock in Prince Albert when she could not find her wallet with R600 in it... she was pretty down all the way to Sutherland where we eventually found the wallet in a small bottom pocket of her jacket. The road to Sutherland was not the one we originally intended to travel as the GPS had routed us along the N1 and the tar road to Sutherland but we had lost a lot of time getting out of The Hell so this did make up some time. Sutherland had a freezing 14 degree wind blowing but the friendly townspeople made up for this. The guest-house owner even put 1L of milk in the fridge for us, and the Perlman House Restaurant not only had great food at very cheap prices, but also very friendly owners and even the pub crowd kept greeting us....
Day Four of our bike ride through the Karoo.... Started with a guided tour of the NG Church at Sutherland where we also saw the graffiti left by English soldiers during the Anglo-Boer War. Before leaving we met up with guy who was recovering his motorbike after having crashed on the gravel road from Middelpos... a freezing cold wind was blowing when we left Sutherland. We did find two geocaches along the road to Matjiesfontein...
Weather was warmer when we got to Matjiesfontein and we were lucky enough to see the Blue Train arrive there on it's weekly stop. This also means a special 10 minute bus tour is done for the passengers and we were invited to join the tour. The guide also showed us through Lord Milner's residence. We saw the Royal Daimler from 1947 in the Transport Museum and also found some old railway carriages to explore at the museum.
After Matjiesfontein we headed to Jagerskraal Farm where we stayed our last night.
Day Five and after a big farm breakfast with home-made bread on Thursday morning we headed back to Cape Town with a great tail wind behind us. We did try to find a geocache near Touws River but were not successful. The only incident on the way back was passing through De Doorns we saw the truck in front braking and come to a standstill... I was about to go past it when I saw local residents on the foot bridge warning us to turn around... ahead about 100 metres I could see people on the road demonstrating (about lack of government service delivery). We did a quick U-turn and headed back along the N1 to detour via the town itself. At the entrance to the town the traffic police had just set up their road block to close the N1 and re-route traffic through the town.
- Wonderful Springbok Potjie (R80 or US$10) and Chantel's Pizza at Perlman House Restaurant in Sutherland... both large portions
- Wind pumps in gardens at Sutherland
- Where I scraped into the side to prevent falling over
- We stopped for Chantel to take this tortoise across the road...
- View out of the bathroom
- View down Huisrivier Pass... lots of roadworks on the pass
- View along Route 62
- Us outside Die Withuisie... ready for day two
- Us on Route 62 on our way to Oudtshoorn
- Us in The Hell
- Us at the Country Pumpkin at Barrydale
- Typical empty caravan stand... very neat and tidy
- Touws River
- Top of Swartberg Pass
- Tight rurns on Swartberg Pass
- This seemed a bit of a rip off in Prince Albert... well over a half hour and R36 each (and the shop was not busy)
- Swartberg Pass was closed on the Prince Albert side when we exited the pass
- Swartberg Pass mountains rocks
- Swartberg Pass
- Sutherland's Police Station and Magistrate's Court
- Sutherland's only tar road
- Sunset in the vineyard at Ladismith
- Stopped by the Platberg Circle Route sign
- Stappies Cordier House where we stayed in The Hell
- Stappies Cordier House History
- Solar power for the houses in the Nature Reserve
- Slippery bit out of The Hell where bike slid to the left into the bank
- Sign: Dangerous road ahead for 48km Use at own Risk!
- Sign that greets you before reaching the shop
- Road towards Die Hel
- Road to Hell....
- Road through The Hell
- Road out of The Hell.... drizzling and I'm worried that the wet rocks in the road surface will be slippery (also started the video here which will be uploaded later)
- Road out of Prince Albert
- Restaurant and shop in The Hell
- Remains of an old ox wagon
- Raining and low cloud over Swartberg Pass past Oudtshoorn... visibility eventually dropped to 20 metres and we had to crawl along
- Private collection in Ladismith
- Private collection in Ladismith
- Plant life along Route 62
- Pietjie and Hester Swanepoel's House
- Perlman House Restaurant and Pub where we had supper in Sutherland... bar has young people in it
- Peek inside a typical lounge in a Karoo hotel... only tyhe TV is new
- Peacock
- Packed and reday to depart... panniers expanded to take all the luggage
- Oupa Piet Mostert's House
- Original church at Sutherland that was moved to make way for the new one
- Old ox wagon
- Old machinery
- Old jail ruins lower down on the Swartberg Pass
- Old Graveyard at Sutherland - Wife just over 26 years old died in 1883
- Old Graveyard at Sutherland - Trooper D Burnett of the 5th Lancers died 1901
- Old Graveyard at Sutherland - just over 5 years old
- Old Graveyard at Sutherland
- Old Graveyard at Sutherland
- Old Graveyard at Sutherland
- Old GPO poles made in London
- Old English Blockhouse guarding a railway bridge from Anglo-Boer War around 1901 (skew angles are my cameras wide angle view)
- Old cast iron poles for phone lines
- Old car
- Old abandoned car
- Old abandoned car
- Northern Cape and Sutherland in the distance
- No Fracking signs in Prince Albert on the trees
- No Fracking Signs at Prince Albert
- Night view of Perlman House Restaurant and Pub with full moon peaking over the roof and the local pub goers vehicles outside
- Night shot of the church at Sutherland
- NG Church in Sutherland Foundation Stone - 3 months to carve and then it broke on installation
- NG Church at Sutherland - Boer War
- Narrow road for the final descent
- More solar panels
- Me with webcam on during ride out of The Hell
- McCormick-Deering
- Matjiesfontein - wrought iron stairs in coffee shop
- Matjiesfontein - Woordwork on dining car 3rd Class
- Matjiesfontein - woodwork in old sleeping carriage
- Matjiesfontein - we were lucky to catch the special bus tour with the Blue Train passengers
- Matjiesfontein - We got a tour of Lord Milner's Residence
- Matjiesfontein - wash basin in sleeping carriage
- Matjiesfontein - View of the Royal Room with the cricket trophy
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