From Wellington to the Warmbokkeveld
A hundred kilometres northeast of Cape Town, on the outskirts of Wellington, I take the slow road on Bain’s Kloof Pass (R301) that weaves its way through the Cape Fold Mountains.
The history of this pass has always fascinated me and I’m looking forward to the drive. As the story goes, in 1846 while master road builder Andrew Geddes Bain was working on the nearby Michell’s Pass, a gap in the Limietberg and Slanghoek mountains caught his attention.
Bain and a team of several hundred convicts began work on the 30-kilometre pass from Wellington to the Breede River, just two months after the completion of the Michell’s Pass. Constructed to provide easy access from Cape Town into the interior, and a ‘gateway to the north’, it opened on 14 September 1853.
It’s a hot morning as I set out north-east in the direction of Ceres, on the narrow, winding meander that is Bain’s Kloof Pass. It’s a splendid day’s drive. Each bend brings another spectacular view of the
