Detour along the Seven Passes Road
Want to escape the summer crush on the coast? Head inland to the Outeniqua Mountains – there’s pinot noir to be sipped and cool forest trails waiting to be explored.
The Garden Route is booming. Word on the street is that up to 30 families are moving to the coast every month from elsewhere in South Africa. Mossel Bay, Hartenbos, Klein Brak, Groot Brak, George… There’s hardly a gap between them any more, with new houses springing up on every available hillside.
It’s even busier during school holidays, when everyone who isn’t living there already arrives in loaded Fortuners towing Venter trailers for a week or two of fun in the sun.
The buzz is great, but it can get exhausting – and that’s where the Outeniqua Mountains come into play. A few kilometres inland and it’s almost like you’re in a different world. Mountains loom in your windscreen and quirky farm stalls tempt you with tea and scones. You can ride your mountain bike or – if you want to disappear completely – you can hike a forest trail and have a picnic lunch under a 900-year-old yellowwood with only Knysna turacos for company.
Jump in and let’s go!
Lions for breakfast
The Garden Route is not just a popular holiday destination for South Africans, it also draws thousands of international visitors annually. Catering to the demand for “wild Africa”, there are dozens of game reserves where Sven from Sweden can get a glimpse of a buffalo or a zebra. Having been spoiled by real wilderness in parks like the Kruger and the Kgalagadi, I have never seen the appeal of visiting one of these smaller reserves. But that’s about to change…
“Go to Botlierskop,” says Meike Prenzel, of Avenues Guesthouse in Mossel Bay where I spent the night. Meike and her husband Martin moved to South Africa from Berlin 14 years ago, and they have their fingers on the tourism pulse in this part of the world. “We always send our guests there. It’s not what you’d expect.”
I don’t actually know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting something this big. Botlierskop Private Game Reserve is a 5 000-hectare sanctuary in the hills behind Mossel Bay, with all sorts of larney accommodation for people looking for an
Out of Africa experience without having to venture too far into Africa. The day visitor’s area is equally impressive – it feels like a cross between Skukuza and a wine farm.
Workmen are busy with maintenance when I arrive, getting everything shipshape for the
December holidays, which is obviously their busiest time. Marketing assistant Alison Nell meets me and explains what’s on offer: “Our game drives are most popular,” she says. “But we also have horse rides, a restaurant, a picnic area, a spa…”
The picnic area looks appealing: private, shaded areas next to a small dam, adjacent to a sparkling swimming pool and a miniature Water World for the kids, with slides and fountains to jump through. Zebra, impala and wildebeest graze on the other side of the dam. The morning game drive lasts three hours and departs daily at 10 am. Again, my scepticism is kicked into touch as guide Devon de Villiers points the Land Cruiser into the hills. I was expecting a glorified tour of a zoo, but as soon as we’ve bumped our way out of the valley, the scale of the reserve becomes apparent. We do manage to find the reserve’s three lions, but it takes some work and they’re nearly invisible in deep shade next to a river – just like lions in the Kruger or the Kgalagadi. Likewise the elephants: They’re off in the distance and happy to be there. The real pleasure of the game drive, for me, is being able to sit on the back bench of the Cruiser with the wind in my hair and just be. The views from the hills are amazing – of the hazy Outeniqua Mountains and also of the coastline – and we see some incredible things, like a leopard tortoise the size of a small coffee table and two equally gigantic mongooses. Children are welcome – they’ll love all the factual snippets provided by Devon and his fellow guides. Indeed, Botlierskop is a great place to head to if you’re simply looking for some down-time away from the campsite chaos at Hartenbos.
KZN in the Southern Cape
The closer you drive to the mountains behind Mossel Bay, the more it feels like you’ve warped the space-time continuum and somehow transported yourself to the KZN Midlands. The landscape is a similar patchwork of dairy farms and up-and-down dirt roads, often blanketed in mist. This feeling is compounded when you walk into Eight Bells Mountain Inn at the foot of Robinson Pass – a classic family hotel of the sort that KZN does so well.
Eight Bells has been around in some incarnation since the 1800s, but it was during the 1930s that the farm became a popular spot for visitors, especially seamen from Royal Navy ships docked in Mossel Bay. This link with the navy explains the name: At sea, a bell was rung
once each half hour of a four-hour watch. The phrase “eight bells” signified the end of the watch – time to rest. Peter and Jean Brown were responsible for turning it into the much-loved family hotel it is today, during their 33-year tenure from 1974 to 2007. The current owners are brothers Charles and René Bongers, with Réne in charge of day-to-day operations.
“I’ve upgraded the facilities as required,” he tells me over tea in the gloriously old-school lounge. “But I’ve tried not to change the feeling. That feeling – that tradition – is what makes people keep coming back. They experienced the hotel a certain way as a child, and now they bring their own children because they know that nothing has changed.”
Eight Bells is worth a visit even if you’re not staying over. Sit outside in the dappled sunshine and have a toasted sandwich while the kids run around. Soak up the views and listen to the hubbub of other happy families also enjoying lunch. Before you leave, peek into the Billiard Room with its original yellowwood floor and interesting artefacts from times gone by, like a typewriter that once produced the restaurant menu, and a vintage projector that used to screen movies for guests. Imagine an era when travellers would arrive on horseback and dismount under the same 200-year-old oak tree outside for a quick pint in the Bosun’s Whistle. Tummies full? Nicely rested? Good. It’s time to drive some passes.
How close is the Karoo?
Closer than you think! One of the joys of driving over Robinson Pass – besides testing your car’s stability control on the sinuous bends – is watching how swiftly the pastureland gives way to dusty ostrich farms. It’s almost unbelievable how different the landscape is from one side of the mountain to the other.
I pause at a viewpoint on the pass and look west into the Attaquas Kloof, where a hellish mountain-bike race passes through each January, and south towards the sea, which is invisible under a blanket of mist. The car’s temperature gauge climbs as I approach Oudtshoorn, but I don’t go all the way into town. Instead, I turn off about 16 km before, where a sign – “Mount Hope” – points down a lonely dirt road. This road is about 30 km long and eventually spits me out on the busy N12 just north of the Outeniqua Pass. It’s a splendid, head-clearing half hour of koppies, blue sky and the occasional prickly pear. I don’t see another vehicle, so the sudden truck crush on the N12 is a bit of a shock. Luckily I don’t have to duke it out with the trucks for long: I turn left onto the N9 towards Uniondale, and right a little way further, to Herold and Montagu Pass.
Nico Fourie traded a life next to the Limpopo for a life below Cradock Peak – the highest point in the Outeniqua Mountains at 1 578 m. Herold Wines is just behind the village of the same name and it’s the least pretentious winery you’re likely to visit. Much of this has to do with Nico himself, who brings a welcome dose of two-tone khaki to the business of sniffing and sipping. That’s not to say his wines aren’t exceptional – they are, especially his 2016 pinot noir – it’s just that he doesn’t take it all as seriously as some other winemakers do.
I sip wine and admire the pincushions in full bloom behind the tasting room, while Nico tells me about a fire that came scarily close in 2018, and how he once saw a caracal bring down a klipspringer. He also tells me how a mistake led to one of his most popular products: “I wanted to make a chardonnay-pinot noir blend and name it after a white lamb, but the pinot skins stayed in for too long and the wine turned from white to pink. I rebranded and that wine became Schaam Schaap instead – a very embarrassed sheep! People love it and now I make it deliberately. The 2017 vintage is sold out.” Everyone loves a story, and Nico will fill your head with them as he leads you through a tasting. Stay for lunch afterwards: a toasted chicken mayo costs a measly R55, and a cheese platter that will feed the table goes for R250. Nutella and Crunchie pancake for dessert? Now we’re talking!
Lazy days at Oakhurst
From Herold, I potter happily down Montagu Pass, alone with my thoughts, while the Outeniqua Pass on the other side of the valley hums with traffic. Why would you want to be there when you could be here?
On the other side of George, I disobey the Google Maps voice guiding me back to the N2 and wiggle my way through the suburbs to the Seven Passes Road – the old road between George and Knysna that rollercoasters from one valley to the next through forest and farmland. Like Montagu Pass, it’s a reminder that national roads are not the only access points to the Garden Route.
My destination for the night is on this road: Oakhurst Farm behind Wilderness.
Jake and Claire Crowther are at the helm;
the sixth-generation descendants of the original owner, Henry Dumbleton, who bought the land in 1820, unseen, while serving in the British army in India. Oakhurst is an enormous dairy farm that brims with history, from the avenue of ancient, ghostly bluegums that welcomes you as you drive in, to the whitewashed church that was built in the 1870s. You can read the story of the farm in the guest-information file in your cottage; it’s basically the origin story of industry in this part of South Africa, peppered with characters seemingly drawn from the pages of a Dalene Matthee novel.
Jake is in charge of the dairy activities and Claire has turned a number of buildings on the farm into classy, comfortable self-catering cottages, including an old blacksmith’s forge from the 19th century. A few years ago AfriCamps also came on board and built eight luxury safari tents next to a dam. Everything at Oakhurst is geared towards family fun: There’s a pump track for riding bikes, a river trail to a waterfall, horses to ride, an archery range, dairy tours, fishing in the dam, kayaks for guests… “You have space to breathe here,” says Claire over coffee in her kitchen. “But we’re also so close to the sea – it’s a 15-minute drive to Wilderness. People love being able to go to the beach and experience all of that, then come back here for peace and quiet.”
I get what she’s saying. At sunset I light a braai on the veranda of my cottage, watching as cows are herded home and mist slowly swallows the Outeniquas again. A Cape eagle-owl calls and its mate answers from somewhere on the other side of the valley.
Elephant whispers
What would a trip to the Knysna Forest be without a visit to the final resting place of Ms Matthee herself? The author of Fiela’s Child and Circles in a Forest, who brought the mythology of this special place to life, is buried at the foot of a towering Outeniqua yellowwood at Krisjan se Nek in the Garden Route National Park. There are some cars in the parking area, but their occupants are all out hiking. I’m alone at the tree and I listen as its 900-year-old branches creak against the boughs of young pretenders straining towards the light.
In a book called Country Days, published in 1974, Norwegian-South African author Hjalmar Thesen writes: “Like venerable old giants of a vanished age the great stinkwood and yellowwood trees stand alone, swaying and nodding their approval… And when the people who are closest to the forest feel the rain upon their cheeks and smell the mist drifting up from the sea, they know it is nothing but the breathing of the forest and then they nod and smile to one another in the streets of the villages, and tourists looking for the sun can only wonder at their secret.”
Thesen knew the secret, and Dalene Matthee certainly did. If you’re one of those sun-seekers Thesen writes about, fear not: You can know the secret too, you just have to drive a few kilometres inland, pick a trail and walk until the canopy closes overhead, until the only sounds are insects in the undergrowth, your heart beating and the wind in the leaves.
I spend my last night away even deeper in the forest, at Diepwalle – an old forestry station now also part of the Garden Route National Park. It’s a weeknight and I’m the only visitor. I’m busy admiring an elephant skeleton in the small museum when I hear a key turning in a lock. I nearly jump out of my skin and make a dash for the door.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was in here,” says ranger Wilfred Oraai, unlocking for me again. He’s a small man, wiry, with eyes that shine like sunlight on a river pool. He’s worked in this part of the forest for 31 years and was instrumental in helping researchers track down Oupoot, a female elephant estimated to be about 45 years old, and confirmed as the last remaining elephant in the forest.
It’s a terribly sad story, since elephants are social animals and a female on her own is neither happy nor healthy. It’s also an indictment of humankind, considering that elephants once roamed here in their thousands. Wilfred looks crestfallen when I bring up Oupoot, so I change the subject to what the forest means to him. His eyes light up again and he says without hesitation: “The forest is spirit. It’s life. When I go into Knysna I get a headache.”
Indeed, I can also feel blood pulsing in my temples as I crawl through town the next morning, on my way back home to Cape Town. I’m driving too slowly, my head still thick with mountains and forests and dirt roads where there are no taxis to cut you off. I notice a Christmas tree in a shopping mall foyer, and municipal workers frantically trying to unblock a stormwater drain. Yes, the Garden Route is gearing up for another frenzied summer season. I console myself by thinking about Diepwalle, Oakhurst, Herold, Botlierskop. The others don’t know about those places, but you do…