Dirt Busters. Deon Meyer
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and climbs into the hills. As you look back, the arid earth makes African pastels in ochre, yellow, dirty white and brown up to the foot of the Rooiberg. It’s only when you’ve travelled the piece of R323 tar road, and turned left after just 2,7 km onto the gravel road, that you realise what you may be letting yourself in for.
The first is the low-water bridge over the Gouritz (before it’s gathered up the streams of the Langeberg – still insignificant, but at least swollen with glittering water in summer). A twin-track road, cemented against erosion, dives down suddenly to the river.
You spend some time on the bridge. Across the river bed is a black cliff, as rough and wild as though it was formed only yesterday. You cool off from the heat of the biker suit with a splash of cold water and then storm up the slope on the other side with a flourish, ever closer to the Langeberg. Your dirt road becomes the R327 and you see the sign to Van Wyksdorp, but keep straight on, meandering over the hills. Sometimes the route winds through ancient stone-built farmyards. Ostriches bound up to the fence and run crazily alongside. Behind them the peaks tower high and dramatic.
When it seems you are about to collide with the ridges, the road dips down into a narrow pass with a brook babbling somewhere just behind the trees. You see the Cloete’s Pass signboard beside the road. It sweeps and curves, sometimes more sharply than you expect, first down, then higher and higher, until a valley opens out below and you see the small farm paradise of Langfontein far below.
Suddenly the plants are lusher and the colours deeper. It’s green here, and pretty – the sort of landscape that lures you to look for a piece of ground and a cottage with a fireplace. And, even though you know it’s the start of the coastal plain, the hills lie plaited together to the south and you suspect there are a lot more spectacles ahead.
You’re through the drift at Langfontein and you are barely up the steep slope on the other side, looking for the road sign to Mossel Bay, when you almost overshoot the turn-off on your left (the turn is at S33 59.503 E21 47.022, if you want to use your GPS). It’s still north of Herbertsdale and now the road surface is narrow, deteriorating to farm track in places, loose gravel and mud from the recent rain. Fourteen kilometres on, you turn left again (another hidden road, at S34 01.335 E21 53.869). You are on the seaward side of the Langeberg and the ridges roll on, but suddenly, over a rise, the view of the day presents itself: the Outeniqua plains and you swear you can see the splendour of it all the way to George.
All too soon you are at Ruitersbos and on the tarred R328 towards the sea, but already you’re making plans to bring a group of six adventure-tour bikes this way in December. You also want them to experience this sense of awe. One thing is certain: the road from Cape Town to George won’t be boring again anytime soon.
1
Barrydale
From Barrydale to Mossel Bay it is 183 km.
Two hours 30 minutes, but you will definitely want to take some photos: allow three and a half hours.
Seweweekspoort
It happens every time you take novices through Seweweekspoort: they can’t stop staring. It’s the kind of expression you see on men’s faces when a supermodel walks past – flabbergasted, wide-eyed amazement, with an accompanying slack jaw.
And the comparison doesn’t end there. No matter from what angle you photograph the Poort, it will always be beautiful. And the beauty just keeps on giving – every metre is a masterpiece of visual aesthetics.
But let me start at the beginning: one June, together with my former boss Lachlan Harris of BMW Motorrad, I took Leon Potgieter of Stellenbosch, Raymond Botha of George, Jan Nortjé of Kimberley and a raw Pommie from London, Phil Horton, through the Baviaans.
That evening, when the trip back to Cape Town was under discussion, I tossed Seweweekspoort into the hat of possibilities, only to discover that not one of them had been there. So I knew what had to happen.
At 11 in the morning we stopped in the middle of the Poort and I watched the group closely. It was an intimidating scene: at first you feel small because the mountains are so close, they oppress you with an excessive show of force. Once you master that, you begin to notice the colours, the red and rust, brown and black, of the rocks. The varying green shades of the plants. And then the texture of the mighty rock formations squeezed and crumpled and rumpled by forces so incomprehensible that it scares you even to think of it.
At first the men looked around a little warily, half out of the corner of their eyes. Then they began to gape and gasp their amazement and soon the digital cameras were chattering like small arms fire in a skirmish.
This is what Seweweekspoort does. It spoils you visually to the extent that you can easily overlook the section of road on the other end of the Poort, which has its own unique charm – all the way from Waterval (an incredible thin ribbon of water that tumbles hundreds of metres down the mountain) to Rooibek, just this side of Laingsburg.
It’s more open, and wider. It begs you to twist the bike’s throttle ear a little, with sheer exuberance after the earlier intimidation. The aesthetic thrills are more spread out, requiring more concentration and observation.
The solution is to ride Seweweekspoort twice, three times, four times. Until your eyes have tamed it. And then to travel the road past Rondefontein, Nietvoorby, Hartland, Suikerbosfontein, Tierkloof and Drielingskloof slowly, willing to accept that there is more for the eye in this world than any supermodel can offer.
2
Ladismith
113 km from Ladismith to Laingsburg
Allow three hours to give the Poort and the road beyond it an equal chance.
The unexpected beauty (and baboons) of the Witteberg
I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye only because I was concentrating on the rocky drift in front of us, a challenge for a heavily laden motorbike. Just to the right something scurried up the near-vertical red cliff stretching w-a-a-a-y up.
My curiosity got the better of me. I stopped and looked: