The Story of Sir Lowry’s Pass
THE STORY OF SIR LOWRY’S PASS
By Mari Fouché

Wagon Trail Tracks over Sir Lowry's Pass
Thousands of people traverse it every day: up the winding double carriage thoroughfare over the mountain to the Overberg or down the other way, checking out the magnificent view, towards Cape Town. Today it is known as the Sir Lowry’s Pass. We take it for granted but have you ever reflected on the history that lies behind this famous Pass?
We have to go back into the far distant past, when animals had dominion over this region of the world, to trace its beginning. Sure-footed herds of Eland, searching for greener pastures, crossed over in the winter months, long before man ever struggled up their precipitous path through the infamous Kloof. The Khoisan tribe, known as Gantauwers (People of the Eland), on their arrival also followed this route, which became known to later travellers as the Elandspat (path of the Eland).
It was early cattle-buyers like Hendrik Lacus and Jeronimus Cruse, sent in 1663 by Zacharias Wagenaar, the replacement for Jan van Riebeeck as Commander at the Cape, who were the first white people to brave the path over the Kloof.
These intrepid travellers must have quaked at the sight of the steep, rocky ascent when they first arrived with their wagons at its foot, and with good reason. Oxen were frequently killed and the wagons smashed as they lost ground and hurtled back down the mountain. It became expedient at times to unload the wagons, take them up piece-by-piece and reassemble them at the summit while the oxen and travellers scrambled up over the rocks. Grooves in the rocks made by the drag-shoes on the wagons can still be seen there after 300 years.
Arriving at the top (it had taken them over two hours), they were treated to a “pleasant view” and noted with great relief that the wagons could be re-assembled, oxen inspanned and the descent made “without even attaching drag-shoes.”
However, the dauntless Lady Anne Barnard, who made a trip to the Kloof in 1797 but not up it, declared,
“I found the horrors of the Kloof, like most other things oft repeated by those who look to astonish others, very much exaggerated”.
But later, on her journey into the interior she seemed to have changed her mind. In a letter to her ‘dearest friend’, The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, she wrote while pausing on the first mile of the ascent and looking back “over heath, sand and sea”, where there was “scarce a house to be seen, no cultivation and of course, no population,” that looking upward to the Kloof she was about to cross, she was “greatly afraid. The path to the top was very perpendicular and the jutting rocks over which the wagon was to be pulled were so large that we were astonished how they were accomplished at all, particularly at one part called the Porch.” (De Poort)
Before Lady Anne Barnard braved its heights, many other explorers had travelled over the Hottentots Holland Kloof. Seventy-one persons journeyed with Ensign August Beutler on their way to their official reconnoitre into the Eastern Cape. The flamboyant Frenchman, Francois Valliant, followed in 1781 and later many others such as the Swedish naturalist, Anders Sparrman and the botanist Francis Masson.
This form of travel remained unchanged until the then Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole (1828-1833) realised that if the trouble with the Xhosa tribes on the eastern frontier were to be controlled, it was imperative to build better roads. Previous plans had been made to repair the Kloof but it was abandoned as far too costly. It was the Surveyor General, Major C.C Michell, who advised that an entirely new road with easy gradients could be built to the south of the old Kloof. Plans were drawn up, submitted and tenders published in the Cape Gazette. After many unforeseen problems along the way, Sir Lowry won, his scheme was sanctioned and work went ahead to create the new road, which cost £7 011 and was officially opened on 6th July 1830.
For a hundred and twenty-eight years it remained unchanged until in 1958, the reconstruction of the Pass, costing R500 000, was completed. In 1984 a further up-grade was made when the upper parts were widened into four lanes.
Today sightseers drive up this beautiful pass to stop at the lookout point, a site on the 420m summit, and enjoy the awe-inspiring view. Paragliders use it as a jumping-off point to sail over the land and touch down on the beach below. Baboons sit around on rocks and contemplate where their next meal is coming from. To think that in 1821, 4 500 ox-wagons in a year used to struggle up and over the Elandspat. Wonder what those hardy men would of thought if they could have glimpsed the magnificent road over the Sir Lowry’s Pass today.
Sources:
- The Story of Hottentot’s Holland : Peggy Heap
- Gordon’s Bay, Jewel of False Bay : Helen van Schalkwyk
- Letters Written from the Cape of Good Hope : Lady Anne Barnard
- Cape Trails and Wilderness Areas : Jose Burman
Information supplied by Gordon’s Bay Reviews