A hell of a trip to Gamkaskloof

Between Prince Albert and Oudtshoorn runs the Swartberg Pass. It passes through the Swartberg range of moun­tains, the nat­ural divide between the plains of the Great Karoo and the val­leys of the Little Karoo, tak­ing in the Swartberg Nature Reserve. Weather depend­ing the trip isn't always advis­able in an ordin­ary sedan. But then if you're any­thing like me, you give warn­ings such as this little credance and head off along the pass any­way. Besides, any­thing you can do in a don­key­cart, you can do in a car, right? Whilst we're on the sub­ject, this road, or pass, was built by Thomas Bain and at least 200 con­victs (give or take a bit of gun­powder). It's some­thing of an engin­eer­ing feat and was com­pleted in 1888. Parts of the drive acquire 'hellish' qual­it­ies when wind­ing along the cork­screw bends on the way in and out of the valley.

It isn't dif­fi­cult to under­stand why this part of the world is called 'die Hel', even if the ori­gin of this pseud­onym is unclear. The pass is a series of untarred steep zig-zags and sud­den swing­backs that leave one breath­less at both the scenery and the sheer dex­ter­ity of the mas­ter­piece that is this pass. Just the entrance, on the Prince Albert side, through a nar­row Cape sand­stone kloof, is worth it for the incred­ible rock faces and the views.

Photographs: Gamkaskloof Photographs by sean­habig on Flickr.com (via cre­at­ive com­mons license).

And so we come to the point of this story. Part of the val­ley of the Swartberg Nature Reserve is known as Gamkaskloof, or Die Hel. Actually, geo­graph­ic­ally that isn't quite cor­rect. Gamkaskloof lies roughly 60 kilo­metres from Prince Albert via the Otto du Plessis road that turn off from the Swartberg Pass, and if you don't want to do this part of the pass, then get there via Oudtshoorn – it's roughy 100 kilo­metres, but the route is said to be slightly less hairy? But you'll be sorry.

A stay in Prince Albert is like a breath of fresh air and a wel­come inter­lude before head­ing into the remote­ness that is the Swartberg. The drive via the Swartberg Pass is pretty spec­tac­u­lar and not passed up lightly. Nothing quite pre­pares you for beauty like this. We're so spoilt and so inund­ated with images on a daily basis that some­times being exposed to the real thing neces­sit­ates a pinch on the arm before the real­ity sinks in.

However, the main draw­card of Die Hel, apart from the incred­ible beauty (any­thing but hellish, really), is that for the bet­ter part of a cen­tury a European com­munity, known as the 'Gamkasklowers', lived here in total isol­a­tion from the rest of the world.  And you begin to under­stand why, given that, although it's only 60 kilo­metres from Prince Albert, it takes at least two hours to reach the val­ley floor on the road that peels off the Swartberg Pass, given the zig­zag­ging back­wards and for­wards. The Gamkaskloof is a val­ley that is but a small sec­tion of the Swartberg Nature Reserve.

Because of its remote­ness it was home to a small com­munity who remained cut off from civil­isa­tion until the 1900s. How they got here, or why, are burn­ing ques­tions that remain largely unanswered, or if they are, it's sheer spec­u­la­tion. Roughly 120 people eeked out an exist­ence here amidst fruit orch­ards and fields of rye, most of whom, iron­ic­ally, left once the road opened up and made travel easier.

Even if the road was meant to make get­ting to Gamkaskloof easier, not out of it. By 1992 all of the ori­ginal inhab­it­ants had fled the val­ley, des­pite their hav­ing been over 70 still remain­ing in 1937. It's a fas­cin­at­ing bit of his­tory, though. That a group of people man­aged to live here, appar­ently in houses made of unbaked mud brick and rye thatch. The first car didn't make it here until 1958, and even then it had to be pulled up a river bed or it wouldn't have made it at all!

Recently there has been a resur­gence in the need to pre­serve this unique his­tory. There is now a resur­gence of interest in the his­tory and indi­vidu­als, like Annetjie Joubert, are there to impart it. She tells of how the vil­la­gers used to trans­port their products of dried fruit, wild honey, len­tils and beans on don­key trains, of around 180 don­keys(!), up the course of the Gamka River to Prince Albert. And we think we've got it tough when we head along the Swartberg Pass in a sedan... She is also the only born and bred Gamkaskloofer still liv­ing in the val­ley, or rather to return to this beau­ti­fully remote val­ley, that has lit­er­ally bottled the term 'old-worlde charm'.

Many of the former dilap­id­ated houses have been ren­ov­ated, and self-catering cot­tages, and a camp­site, are avail­able for those who can't face enter­ing and leav­ing on the same day. So, if wonky walls, wood-burning don­key stoves, solar power, and being hemmed in by moun­tains on all sides are your thing, then this is the place to escape from it all.

The 'don­key trail' over the Swartberg Mountain, con­nect­ing Calitzdorp and Prince Albert with the val­ley, was the only com­mer­cial link that the set­tle­ment had with civil­isa­tion. Today, there is a sim­ilar don­key trail from Calitzdorp to Die Hel from the ori­ginal access point to the trail, from the south. Hans and Erika Calitz now own the por­tion of the farm called Living Waters (formerly known as Groenfontein) on which the ori­ginal access point for the trail lies.

In part­ner­ship with CapeNature, they have revived this his­toric route and turned into a won­der­ful walk­ing tour — a four-day and three-night affair that will allow you to exper­i­ence the Little Karoo from a whole dif­fer­ent perspective.

Gamkaskloof is no longer hid­den from the rest of the world. It is, how­ever, quite a feat to reach the little val­ley and the greater Swartberg Nature Reserve, but well worth the effort, if escap­ing from it all is high on your list of priorities.

Useful Links:
Prince Albert Attractions
Things to Do in Prince Albert
Prince Albert Accommodation
Karoo Accommodation