This morning we woke in a very wet Karoo.
The water had subsided and Meirings Poort was open once again, but debris was everywhere.
Meirings Poort was named after PETRUS JOHANNES MEIRING, who owned the farm DE RUST which was situated at the southern entrance to the pass. In 1854 when the renowned roadmaker, Andrew Geddes Bain, was trying to find a route for a road with which to link the Great and Little Karoos, Petrus Meiring drew his attention to the great ravine penetrating the range from his farm. Bain rode through the pass and considered it to be ideal. The entire ravine had been worn through the range by escaping floodwaters which resulted from occasional downpours in the Great Karoo. The draining stream, simply known as the GROOTSTROOM (great stream), had eroded for itself a reasonable level floor littered with giant boulders and overlooked by colossal precipices. Any road made through the ravine would have to cross and re-cross the stream 26 times, but the route was perfectly practical and just the type of pass which Bain loved: grand and majestic to behold, with brilliantly coloured sedimentary sandstone precipices, and the whole place full of odd rock shapes and echoes. On 3 MARCH 1858 Meiringspoort was opened to traffic and was considered to be such an asset to the farmers of the Great Karoo, who could now send their produce through the mountains to be shipped from Mossel Bay, that a party of 300 horsemen and 50 carts carrying ladies, made an opening tour through the pass. Meiringspoort remains one of the most romantically lovely of all South African road passes. It is 12,9km long from its northern to its southern entrance & scenically, is beautiful and interesting. There are many pleasant picnic sites & resting places where you can pause a while and admire the towering cliffs with their fantastic patterns of warped and twisted rocks, numerous flowering plants and rugged piles of boulders.
The Suzuki Ignis might be a little SUV, but it takes adventures like these in it’s stride. It’s got decent ground clearance (more than the bikes in fact) of 180mm and that, combined with the short wheel base, means that the Ignis can tackle uneven roads with ease. You just take it a little slower over the really rough bits. I have takena car like this all the way into “The Hell” (Gamkaskloof) and it emerged after that without so much as a rattle.
Compared to the bike it has more packing space, but then, the bike has more headroom than any car in it’s class! Haha!
Our adventure was coming to an end and some in the group had to hightail it to the George airport to catch their flights, but not before we visit the old toll house on Montagu Pass.
The Toll House had been restored by the community of George, but tragically it has been destroyed in a fire soon after. Restoration started all over again and today it is a jewel in the heritage of George. And just the place to have coffee and pancakes on a rainy day!
And so, sadly, our adventure came to an end.
Having recently bought a new bike in this segment, it was interesting to ride a rival bike for three days. This bike impressed me in several ways.
For my thoughts on the bike click HERE.
Side note: I have a Vlogger friend, Jack Hartland, and unbeknownst to us at the time we did almost everything in this trip mere weeks before this trip. So I will be embedding some of our videos in this report for additional viewing. The moving pictures really compliments the still photos in this report and gives a better idea of the breathtaking beauty of this area. Not that any video or photo could ever grasp the magnificence of what you experience here. And I am not exaggerating.
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