Dusty Oudtshoorn is hot and dry when we drive in on a Saturday morning. The small downtown is bustling with people doing their last minute food and liquor shopping as—we soon discover—the town shuts down tightly from Saturday lunchtime until Monday morning. Absolutely nothing is open, and the movement of pre-noon fades into memory a mere hour later.
We’re fortunate to find a central and very welcoming B&B, and the hostess, Thea, buries us in a wealth of information and stories about older Oudtshoorn, along with maps, pamphlets, and a welcome cup of tea out on her verandah. We settle in and spend some time perusing all the information. Later in the afternoon, we head north towards the mountains, and visit my parents at their hotel, which lies way out in the countryside. Along the way we pass various ostrich farms—source of the town’s original wealth in its hey-day.
When unsuspecting merchants happened to display ostrich feathers when trading goods in Cape Town over a century ago, they found eager buyers for their wares, and unwittingly discovered that they had something unique and extremely lucrative on their hands. Ostrich feathers featured prominently in everything from costumes to hats, they were a pricey and relatively rare commodity, such that ostrich farmers became dizzyingly wealthy overnight. They constructed what came to be known as “ostrich palaces”—ornately decorated sandstone houses--, and then filled them with imported European staircases, mantelpieces, silverware, crystal and porcelain. With the first World War demand for feathers evaporated, and with it, the fortunes of many ostrich farmers. Oudtshoorn and its ostrich industry careened into depression, not resurging until after the second world war. More recently, however, ostriches have become a commodity for their unusual leather, and their allegedly no-cholesterol meat, along with their still unique feathers. Oudtshoorn is once again on the upswing—although it is a mite shabby around the edges.
With the town locked up tightly and the weather forecast mixed, we decide to undertake the Swartberg Pass on the Sunday—making our way through the mountains and over into South Africa’s great Karoo, then swinging back into Oudtshoorn by looping through the Meiringspoort pass. This is considered a classic tour through the “two passes”.
Although the way up the mountain is varyingly shrouded in low clouds, we occasionally get peeks at the rolling valleys north of Oudtshoorn, and as we climb near to the summit of the pass, at about 1500m, the clouds dissipate and some jaw-dropping scenery emerges. The mountains are raw and savage, thick slabs of rough reddish stone, festooned in the beginning of spring flowers, various sorts of proteas and windswept shrubbery—referred to here as fynbos. On our many photo stops, there is the opportunity to get a closer look at the vegetation, and the variety is stunning. There are superb, if dizzying views over the prehistoric valleys, and literally every tight turn in the pass offers another spectacular vista. Photos can’t do justice to the reality, but they do give a glimmer.
Once through the pass we swing through the tiny hamlet of Prince Albert, enjoy a light lunch on the terrace of the hotel and decide we’ll return to spend a couple of nights so as to be able to spend some time getting to know this side of the range a mite better. From there, back on the road through what is now called Prince Albert valley, admiring the young vineyards, swerving past kamikaze tortoises crossing the road, and past blazes of bright spring flowers and impressionistic peach orchards. We reach the Meiringspoort pass, which does not reach much in the way of height, but carves through the rugged rocks of the valley, flames of orange and red aloes hugging precipitous cliffs. Numerous baboons congregate on and by the sides of the road, looking nonchalant and menacing at the same time. We complete the pass with a quick stop at the waterfall, where I’m a tad alarmed at the board cautioning us about snakes—as plenty of them are frighteningly venemous. Back to Oudtshoorn for some well-deserved rest, and the next morning, we do the route in reverse, this time stopping for a couple of nights in Prince Albert.
The tiny town has a bit of a cowboy western set feel—one main street with a few dusty side streets petering out into nowhere. Stretches of dirt road appear to disappear into the horizon. We are fortunate to land in Mai’s B&B. She has a wonderful house with several lovely rooms, but we choose her old “workman’s cottage” at the back for our room. Her kitchen/living area is cozy and comfortable, and there is light everywhere. Her garden and pool have private corners tucked in all over, and she shares her substantial plot with a nicely growing garden and a band of gorgeous feral cats. At the back is the unworked land on which she plans to build herself a cottage to retire in if she ever decides to leave/sell the B&B business. Her attention to detail is everywhere in the room, and we enjoy it and her company greatly for our few days together.
In town we wander in and out of the few shops, check out the local museum, find the most exceptional Cape Dutch buildings, visit the minute library, eat fabulous apple pie at the Lazy Lizard and try to find the couple who run nature walks in the plant reserve outside town, but sadly they’re in Cape Town, and we’ll be gone before they return. Abundant rosemary bushes are flowering everywhere, and lavender is one step short of being a weed. Both are beautiful and they smell divine. We hike the short trail that skirts the hill behind town, and meander on the dirt roads rimmed with dessicated looking plants, passing lost looking sheep, sunning lizards and distant ostriches. The evenings are cold, but we snuggle in our warm room, doze and read, and plan for the next leg of the trip.
After hugs goodbye with Mai, we return over the Swartberg pass once more. It doesn’t disappoint. There is a crust of new snow at the top of the pass, and the valley on the Oudtshoorn side is a velvet patchwork in the morning light. We stop off at the famed Cango Caves, and then we’re off west to Calitzdorp and Barrydale.
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