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Cape Town Road Trip, Karoo to Cederberg - January 2021
ROAD TRIP ON THE DIAGONAL - PHASE 3 - KAROO TO CEDERBERG
Having waved good-bye to the Karoo National Park, we boarded the N1. We were heading to the Cape. Well, not Cape Town directly, we still had a stop in the Cederberg planned, which would mean a little dogleg to the north.
The problem with taking a main route like the N1, is that you know that there is much more to it than the tar ribbon and the dusty road shoulders. Beyond the scrubland and grass there are things to see, the side roads lead to places full of interesting stuff. This is what makes travel addictive, there is always more to go back to. We passed turn-offs to Leeuw-Gamka and Prins Albert and shot through Laingsburg, with its Flood Museum built on the floodplain, and kept adding items to the bucket list.
We were about to trundle past Matjiesfontein as well, ticking away at the list, but the lunch hour creeping up and the legendary attraction of this town paused the headlong rush.
Matjiesfontein was founded in 1884 around a railway stop as a refreshment station in the arid Karoo. It was part of the line that connected Cape Town to the diamond fields in Kimberly. The name comes from a type of sedge, Cyperus textilis, used by the Khoekhoen to make the mats (matjies) used to construct their huts. This obviously grew abundantly in the area …. around a fountain.
It soon attracted visitors with recognisable names like Randolph Churchill (father of Winston), Cecil John Rhodes, Rudyard Kipling and Olive Schreiner and became a fashionable health spa in the Victorian era.
Today, the town is an immaculately preserved view into the years of yore and exudes history with every breath it takes. It has seen famed cricketers of the past up close, been fortified as the headquarters of the Cape Command during the South African War, served as refuge for Jamieson Raid reformers and the venue of controversial war crimes hearings.
The iconic hotel was built in 1899 by James Logan and was used as military hospital during the conflict with British forces. The hotel turret did duty as a lookout post. The troops had to be satisfied with tents in the veld outside the town while the officers ….. well, we all know how that story goes!
In the cemetery, 10km out of town, lies, amongst others, British Army Major-General Andrew Wauchope and as well as George Lohmann, an English cricketer who chose the healthy Karoo climate for his final years.
Matjiesfontein Village was purchased by the legendary South African hotelier, David Rawdon, in 1968 and after extensive renovations, he opened the hotel as The Lord Milner Hotel in 1970. The entire village of Matjiesfontein was preserved as a National Heritage Site, with the Rawdon family as custodians.
We spent an enjoyable couple of hours snapping photos and having a light lunch in the coffee shop of the hotel before reluctantly leaving to pursue our ultimate goal for the day, where we had to sign in before 16h00 that afternoon.
Info:
https://www.matjiesfontein.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matjiesfontein
We were now approaching the area where the Cape fold mountains and fynbos start replacing the Karoo koppieveld. Just after Touwsriver we exchanged the N1 for the R46 (the old route between Cape Town and Johannesburg) and passed through Ceres, aptly named after the Roman goddess of agriculture, and nestled in an extremely fertile valley where most of South Africa’s deciduous fruit is produced. I spent quite a few holidays and weekends here as a teenager and young student, including some cold but fantastic winter adventures chasing snow in the high-lying areas.
We left the town through the spectacular Michell’s Pass overlooked by mountains made more rugged by the 1969 earthquake that shook the area to its core.
At Gouda we turned onto the R365, now travelling more-or-less directly north. We stopped briefly to marvel at the extensive and impressive wind turbine plant on the outskirts of this town that I only remembered for its quirky bar festooned with women’s underwear (we did not pause to traverse that particular memory lane) and then moved on towards the N7.
This major highway connects Cape Town to the Namibian border and is also well worth exploring, especially during spring flower season in late August and September.
About 30 km north of the town of Citrusdal (guess what they grow in that area?), we turned off on a gravel road and covered the 17km into the heart of the Cederberg mountains (named after the endangered and endemic Clanwilliam cedar (Widdringtonia cedarbergensis). This mountain range is famed for spectacular rock formations and sought-after hiking routes.
We had booked into the Algeria campsite, managed by CapeNature as part of the Cederberg Wilderness conservation area and set in an extremely scenic valley, complete with a crystal clear mountain stream. Ongoing maintenance, in the form of the felling of exotic gum trees, offered photographic opportunities due to the sheer size of the felled behemoths.
There is no shop on site, but firewood and ice can be bought at reception. Bring your own toilet paper, however. There is no swimming pool, but swimming is allowed in the clear pool in the river. The camp sites do not have electricity and cellular phone reception is weak, making it a great place to unwind.
We could not fault the warm welcome and even though the upkeep of the lower campsite area lacks the finesse of SANparks, we were perfectly comfortable under the canopy of a stand of common wild figs at our campsite. The sunset and moonrise come highly recommended as well!
The night was a bit colder than the previous ones, the altitude and the burbling mountain stream contributing to the need to snuggle up close for the first time on this trip.
The next morning only offered enough time for half a hike to the waterfall, of which we did not even see half, as we did not reach it, but we managed a satisfying bit of shutter-clicking, the area being rich in beautiful plants, creatures, and scenery. And yes, we will be going back …..
After breakfast, we were off, south to the Mother City, for an overnight stay with Charmaine, an ex-Durban friend, now living in the Table View area.
Of course, we had to stop and admire the rooibos tea plantations unique to the area, where we met farmer Lydia van der Westhuizen of the Cederbos farm https://www.cederbos.co.za/. The detail of this delightful chance meeting is the topic on a special post, also on the Two Twits website, please have a look and a read, it is always nice to see what the locals are up to.
Info:
