tok-tokkie
Race Dog
Thursday Day 10 Ladismith to Home 493km 8h 53m
I stayed in some B&B in Ladismith & had beers & supper at the only option. There is more choice in Calitzdorp but my bed & supper were fine.
I love Seweweekspoort and had originally planned to go through it & back on my way up but the distances did not work out so I decided to come back through it. I have been through it several times in my bakkie. I woke in the night to hear gentle rain & it had not completely cleared when I set off in the morning. I had carried my raingear with me so now it was justified.
Here is the southern entry to Seweweeks. I love the massive naked geology lesson that is Seweweeks. How anyone can believe in Creationism when faced by this evidence is beyond my understanding. The wonderful name most probably arose from the locals not being able to pronounce the name of the local missionary preacher â?? Zerwick; which they corrupted, quite rightly, to Seweweek.
Second
I think to name a pass Bosluispas is almost as good as calling Rev Zerwick Rev Seweweek so I wanted to see it. It leads nowhere anymore. Originally it was on the road to Prince Albert but the road was inundated when they built the Gamkapoort Dam in 1968 so you have to come back out the same way you went in. Another of those nice deserted gravel roads that I travelled on this trip. The dam is not worth the trip but the road is. Graham Ross in â??The Romance of Cape Mountain Passesâ??: â??The rocks of the pass contain fossils of â??creatures before the floodâ??, the most prolific being fossils of (bush) ticks â?? hence the name of the river and the pass.â? Further trouble for Creationists.
Outbound
The gravel road gets you to Lainsberg when you are faced with the N1 to Cape Town. I had a beer and some lunch. I had noticed on my map a gravel road running parallel to the N1 just to the south starting at Lainsburg going about 60km to Konstabel so I opted for that instead. I was absolutely delighted when I got to it, it runs up this long straight valley between two ranges of hills. On & on it goes with just one gate & just one other vehicle passed when just over the hills on my right I would be slabbing it down the N1 mixed in with heavy trucks etc. Bliss. Sorry about this stitched photo; I bought a smart small camera just before I left & did not know about the special setting for stitching photos at that time.
This is the road; 60km like this instead of the N1.
On my Topographical & Recreational maps on my Zumo I had noticed a very minor road running from just after Kobstabel to Touws River just to the south. It is marked in white on the topo maps which means it really is a minor road. I found the turnoff at Quarry about 5km down the road from Konstabel & took it. It soon led to a gate to a game farm but there was a service road running alongside the trans Karoo railway track â?? it was just a tweespoor buit ok so I went down that. I crossed the tracks a couple of times &, strangly, had to let a train go past at one of the crossings. I suppose it is about 25km long & you can see the N1 to your right for a lot of the way. When I got to the end there was a locked gate. But someone had cut a hole in the fence next door big enough for a bike to get through so all was well. In places it was narrower than in the photo & my panniers were covered in squashed succulent Karoo vegetation juice at the end of it.
The service road got me just about to Touws River. Nine km past Touws River I turned north on a tar road which went over Die Venster pass and on to Ceres. This was a fast flowing road. Here is the view of Ceres and the Oliphants river valley. I would never have thought that it was downhill all the way to Citrusdal from here.
I really like Baineâ??s Kloof; especially riding it from east to west as you can go up the wiggly east side just on the throttle relying on compression and Isaac Newton to slow you down for the bends. Sadly it was closed until 14 December so I had to shoot through Slanghoek to get to Du Toitâ??s Pass and then slab it on the N1 back home.
I stayed in some B&B in Ladismith & had beers & supper at the only option. There is more choice in Calitzdorp but my bed & supper were fine.
I love Seweweekspoort and had originally planned to go through it & back on my way up but the distances did not work out so I decided to come back through it. I have been through it several times in my bakkie. I woke in the night to hear gentle rain & it had not completely cleared when I set off in the morning. I had carried my raingear with me so now it was justified.
Here is the southern entry to Seweweeks. I love the massive naked geology lesson that is Seweweeks. How anyone can believe in Creationism when faced by this evidence is beyond my understanding. The wonderful name most probably arose from the locals not being able to pronounce the name of the local missionary preacher â?? Zerwick; which they corrupted, quite rightly, to Seweweek.
Second
I think to name a pass Bosluispas is almost as good as calling Rev Zerwick Rev Seweweek so I wanted to see it. It leads nowhere anymore. Originally it was on the road to Prince Albert but the road was inundated when they built the Gamkapoort Dam in 1968 so you have to come back out the same way you went in. Another of those nice deserted gravel roads that I travelled on this trip. The dam is not worth the trip but the road is. Graham Ross in â??The Romance of Cape Mountain Passesâ??: â??The rocks of the pass contain fossils of â??creatures before the floodâ??, the most prolific being fossils of (bush) ticks â?? hence the name of the river and the pass.â? Further trouble for Creationists.
Outbound
The gravel road gets you to Lainsberg when you are faced with the N1 to Cape Town. I had a beer and some lunch. I had noticed on my map a gravel road running parallel to the N1 just to the south starting at Lainsburg going about 60km to Konstabel so I opted for that instead. I was absolutely delighted when I got to it, it runs up this long straight valley between two ranges of hills. On & on it goes with just one gate & just one other vehicle passed when just over the hills on my right I would be slabbing it down the N1 mixed in with heavy trucks etc. Bliss. Sorry about this stitched photo; I bought a smart small camera just before I left & did not know about the special setting for stitching photos at that time.
This is the road; 60km like this instead of the N1.
On my Topographical & Recreational maps on my Zumo I had noticed a very minor road running from just after Kobstabel to Touws River just to the south. It is marked in white on the topo maps which means it really is a minor road. I found the turnoff at Quarry about 5km down the road from Konstabel & took it. It soon led to a gate to a game farm but there was a service road running alongside the trans Karoo railway track â?? it was just a tweespoor buit ok so I went down that. I crossed the tracks a couple of times &, strangly, had to let a train go past at one of the crossings. I suppose it is about 25km long & you can see the N1 to your right for a lot of the way. When I got to the end there was a locked gate. But someone had cut a hole in the fence next door big enough for a bike to get through so all was well. In places it was narrower than in the photo & my panniers were covered in squashed succulent Karoo vegetation juice at the end of it.
The service road got me just about to Touws River. Nine km past Touws River I turned north on a tar road which went over Die Venster pass and on to Ceres. This was a fast flowing road. Here is the view of Ceres and the Oliphants river valley. I would never have thought that it was downhill all the way to Citrusdal from here.
I really like Baineâ??s Kloof; especially riding it from east to west as you can go up the wiggly east side just on the throttle relying on compression and Isaac Newton to slow you down for the bends. Sadly it was closed until 14 December so I had to shoot through Slanghoek to get to Du Toitâ??s Pass and then slab it on the N1 back home.
