Building George’s famous four passes
Some of the most scenic passes in the world were built in the Western Cape. Not only are they awe-inspiring in their engineering, but leave us with heritage of which we can be proud .
Marion Whitehead, in her book Passes & Poorts, tells us how these passes were built.
The Cradock Pass
Cradock Pass was originally a bridle path over the Outeniquas north of George and Blanco. It was built in just two months under the supervision of the local landdrost in response to demands from farmers and traders for a decent route for wagons over the mountains.
It was named after Sir John Cradock, the governor of the Cape at the time, but from the start there were problems with the 10-kilometre route, which rose rapidly to a saddle in the mountains at 982 metres. It was so steep and treacherous that it could take a double team of oxen three days to cross it.
Many travellers complained that it was a road ‘fit only for baboons, and baboons which have the advantage of youth and activity’. As a result there were many accidents. Captain J.E. Alexander remarked that on his 1835 crossing he had seen a wagon which had been stuck for five days in mid-air and that the road was ‘everywhere strewed with broken yokes and sprinkled with the blood of miserable bullocks’. A military officer travelling with the colonial secretary John Montagu remarked that it was ‘the most impossible place for horses, much less for wagons, to get over I ever beheld’.
Cradock Pass became even worse after the heavy traffic which moved over it en route to the eastern frontier war of 1835. Nevertheless, it was the main ‘highway’ over the mountains for 37 years and, at some places on the descent into the Herold Valley, you can still see the grooves worn into the rocks by braking wagons.
After crossing it himself in 1836, the surveyor-general of the Cape, Major Charles Michell, decided it was not worth repairing and planned a new crossing. It took another eight years before work started on Montagu Pass.
The old Cradock Pass is marked by white beacons, visible from the modern Outeniqua Pass, and is a challenging day hike for anyone game to follow in the footsteps of Sophy Gray, wife of Bishop Robert Gray, who walked it in 1856 in long skirts.
Montagu Pass
Montagu Pass was the first properly engineered route over the Outeniqua Mountains and it took four years to build, using convict labour. About 9 kilometres of solid bedrock had to be blasted out with gunpowder (dynamite was not yet available) to provide gradients suitable for oxwagons. Gunpowder was expensive, however, and the low-cost option of building fires over large boulders, then throwing cold water on them to make them crack, was often used.
Low dry-stone packed walls were constructed along the edge of the road and still provide protection from the dizzying drops into the ravine below. Henry Fancourt White was in charge of construction and, while working on the project, he fell in love with the area and bought land at the foot of the pass. (Blanco, now a suburb of George, was initially called Whitesville in his honour but was later changed to the Latin word meaning ‘white’.) The beautiful, double-storey manor house he built is now part of the Fancourt Hotel and Golf Resort, where the two older golf courses are named Montagu and Outeniqua after the local passes.
When Montagu Pass was finished in 1847, it reduced travelling time over the mountain to just three hours, using a single span of oxen. Farmers in the Oudtshoorn area were able to deliver produce to George and Mossel Bay’s harbour rather than taking the long trek up the Langkloof to Port Elizabeth.
The first motor car to do the journey from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth took six days in 1902. Tom Silver, an English motorist driving a Quadrant, reported no trouble on his journey until he reached Montagu Pass, where he was unable to make a clear run up the steep gradients ‘owing to the numerous teams of oxen and wagons he met going through the pass’. It was clear that a different kind of road was needed for faster traffic in the 20th century.
Outeniqua Pass
The Outeniqua Pass was engineered for modern motoring and it took eight years to construct the 14.5-kilometre route because the rock was so hard and difficult to drill for dynamite charges. In order to create gradients that would be gradual enough for reasonable traffic speed, the construction workers had to blast huge cuttings out of the mountainside. The biggest was 20 metres wide and the material blasted out was used in rock fills up to 30 metres deep. The pass was officially opened in 1951.
By 1993, the increase in traffic made upgrading necessary. The four-year project saw engineers and environmentalists co-operating to protect the nature reserve through which the pass runs. Traffic was limited to a one-way stop-go system on this busy road during construction, with total closure during blasting hours each morning. An exception was made during the all-important hops harvest season when blasting was suspended so that farmers could truck this vital beer-making ingredient to the South African Breweries plant in Blanco below the pass.
Today the pass is well cambered, with passing lanes on several sections. From the crest at 800 metres, the road curves through massive cuttings up to 30 metres deep. Rock blasted from these cuttings was used for the big infills lower down the pass, the largest of these being 45 metres deep.
Making love not war
The crew of Italian prisoners of war who built the Outeniqua Pass during the Second World War included waiters, gardeners, barbers, bakers and craftsmen. They found more favour with the local women than with the project engineer, who moaned about their slowness in his reports. He was overjoyed when the war was over and the Italians were repatriated. The pass was completed in 1951 with the help of local labourers more used to this kind of heavy work. A number of the Italians returned after the war to marry the local women they had met and settled in the Garden Route.
Saving the flowers
The upgrading of the Outeniqa Pass involved the largest and most successful fynbos revegetation project of its time. It was hailed as a model for future developments to demonstrate how engineers and environmentalists can work together.
Before the bulldozers moved in to start construction, thousands of plants were removed to a nursery at the foot of the pass and stored according to their zones: summit, mist belt and lower slopes. Many hectares of topsoil were stockpiled for later use and seeds and cuttings were collected.
It was a great challenge to revegetate the rocky infills. Once a soil covering was in place, a seed mix of 10 fynbos varieties indigenous to the Outeniqua Nature Reserve was sprayed over it. In all, a total of 60 000 plants were replanted on the mountainside. Even the more formal flower beds at the five view sites were planted with fynbos varieties.
The rehabilitation of the vegetation on the pass cost less than five per cent of the total contract, and visitors to the Garden Route are greeted by verges planted with carpets of pink and orange watsonias in summer and a variety of fynbos throughout the year.
Railway Pass
The railway line to Oudtshoorn leaves George Station and runs past the Garden Route Botanical Garden before starting the long, winding 1:40 ascent of the Railway Pass.
Work started on the George side in 1908 and 10 tons of explosives were used to blast the hard Table Mountain quartzite, one of the hardest rock types in South Africa.
Seven tunnels were excavated and a workforce of 2500 men laboured on moving rocks and rubble down the mountainside in cocopans.
When the 34-kilometre pass met the line being constructed from Oudtshoorn in 1913 at Kamfer Station, outside the village of Herold, it cut travel from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth by 267 kilometres.
This route offers a spectacular ride, with views across George to the coastal plateau and beyond Mossel Bay. Passenger trains are infrequent, but the little Outeniqua Power Vanruns daily from the Outeniqua Railway Museum in George.
Hard labour
The hardness of the rock made building the passes extremely difficult work. The Table Mountain sandstone here is the oldest layer of the Cape Supergroup and, where it’s exposed, has weathered to a greyish white. Part of the Cape Fold Mountain belt, the rocks were exposed to tremendous pressures millions of years ago during the formation of the African continent.
Leopards lurk
There are still leopards lurking in these mountains but they are rarely seen. Baboons and small game are best spotted from the battery-driven Outeniqua Power Van as it glides up the Railway Pass in relative silence.
If you are interested in seeing these passes for yourself, then read this article: Passes and Poorts – Gateway to the Garden Route
Extract from Passes & Poorts: Getaway’s top 30 scenic mountain routes in the Western Cape by Marion Whitehead.
The guide covers the most scenic routes of the Western Cape, such as the Cederberg passes and Bain’s Kloof, Tradouw, Garcia and Gysmanshoek passes.Some follow ancient migration routes or are engineering masterpieces, but all are spectacular. Marion also includes handy tips on best driving routes, what you’ll see, hiking trails, mountain-biking tracks and 4×4 routes. R179.95 (VAT incl and local postage only)
Order your copy of Passes & Poorts now for a great read
More info on the town of George | More info on the Garden Route area |
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