In this week’s episode of the South African road trips 5 week series, we look at Cape Town to Oudtshoorn and back, week 5 #Roadtripping
Be sure to come past Randburg Midas for all your camping, fishing and outdoor lifestyle needs.
Karoo cruise (Cape Town to Oudtshoorn and back, 850km/528mi)
From Cape Town, this circuit swishes between the Cape Winelands’ vine-clad mountains to the Great Karoo, the northern section of the semi-arid plateau. Step into the past at surreal Matjiesfontein (pronounced ‘mikeys-fontein’), a beautifully preserved 19th-century railway village, and ‘tour’ its single street on a vintage London bus.
After covering more of the dry Karoo (its name is a Khoe-San word meaning ‘land of thirst’), take a well-earned break in Prince Albert. A typically refined Karoo village, Prince Albert has plenty of galleries to wander through before you cross the Swartberg mountains on the Swartberg or Meiringspoort Pass, both feats of engineering. Across the mountains in the more fertile Little Karoo, Oudtshoorn was an ostrich boom town; you can still see the Victorian mansions of the ‘feather barons’.
Route 62, touted as the world’s longest wine route, leads back towards Cape Town via the Breede River Valley’s fruit farms and mountain vistas. Montagu makes a convenient stop off, its art deco architecture, gourmet restaurants and walking trails overlooked by the Langeberg Range.
Source: www.lonelyplanet.com
