Travelling the Cederberg in a mobile home

Our house skidded to a halt metres from the plunging waters. Plates clattered, cutlery clashed and someone catapulted down the passage, cursing. Ahead was at least 100 metres of flooding Olifants River right across the road. I backed up the motor home and hauled out a map. Was there another way to Sanddrif? I was about to whip off my kit and do the stick-walking thing through the flood when a Jeep pulled up.

‘Blocked again,’ the driver sighed, stating the obvious. ‘I wouldn’t walk across if I was you,’ he added, noting my heroic intentions. ‘The water digs big holes. You could disappear. You’ll have to backtrack to Clanwilliam and cross the river there. Then take the back road along the river.’

An hour later we were on the other side of the Olifants, gazing across at where we’d been thwarted. It seemed a good place to stop for a cuppa and biscuits. This, I had to admit, was a definite plus in a motor home: everything you need is right where you want it, when you want it. Especially a cup of tea.

Caravans have always worried me. I think it’s because of the skinny little link between the tail end of the car and your portable cottage. Irrational, I’m sure – it’s made of serious steel. My family doesn’t have that hang-up, however, so we compromised on a motor home. Our destination was Sanddrif, a farm in a remote valley with cottages and a first-class campsite.

Before being allowed to drive the large Mercedes camper out of Maui’s yard, I had to have a lesson on how to sail her. Clutching a fistful of keys, Jean Holtshauzen toured the exterior. ‘This opens the storage compartment, this one the water flap, down there’s the gas flap – don’t forget to close it when you travel. The electricity plugs in here and this is the waste tank. When it gets full, you need to empty it.’

‘It has a toilet?’ I asked. ‘Oh yeah, and a shower, a full kitchen, even a cocktail cabinet,’ said Jean. ‘Sleeps five comfortably. But watch out for overhead branches. It’s quite high.’

That was an understatement. The thing seemed enormous. But, once in the driver’s seat, the big windscreen, power steering and comfortable seats eased my fears. By the time we’d packed up and hit the open road the next day, I had all the confidence of a mini-bus taxi driver.

‘Slow down,’ yelled my daughter from the back. ‘I’m only doing 100.’ ‘Well it feels too fast,’ she insisted. ‘That’s because you’re staring backwards out the picture window. Come sit up front.’ ‘No, we’re playing cards.’

By the time we hit the dirt road, nobody was interested in cards. On the corrugations, the noise was deafening until we stuffed a towel into the cutlery drawer and rearranged the cocktail cabinet. I did slow down, however, mainly because of the spectacular scenery.

A weather forecast had predicted rain in the Cederberg, but we had decided to chance it. Wild clouds were swirling round the high peaks as we wound up towards Algeria, the ‘capital’ of the wilderness area, and everywhere the fynbos was begging bees and butterflies with outrageous flower displays.

At Sanddrif we were settled in by David Nieuwoudt, whose family has farmed those parts since the 1830s. ‘It takes a Nieuwoudt to survive up here,’ he said. ‘It’s a kilometre high and the temperature drops to minus 8C in winter. But there are no pests and … just look around you … it’s beautiful.’

David and his father used to farm fruit trees, but now it’s mostly vines. In the 1800s it was tobacco and sheep. Other attractions are that Sanddrif is the base camp for hikes to the Maltese Cross, Wolfberg Arch and Wolfberg Cracks.

We planned to hike to the cracks, but the predicted rain came down so we hauled out the cards and sampled a bottle (okay, several) of David’s wine. . their wines win prizes and there’s just something about uncorking a good red on the farm on which it’s made.

‘Good job we’ve got the Turtle,’ said my son as the rain pattered on the roof. ‘Who’s the Turtle?’ I asked, peering around suspiciously. ‘ This,’ he swept his arm around the mobile room, ‘the camper van. Without her we’d be out there in a tent. Nasty in this weather.’ So the Turtle she became.

The clouds took a day or two to clear, but eventually we could tackle Wolfberg. From up there, the Turtle looked tiny and, by then, compelling. Way down there was a hot meal, some good wine and a soft bed. She was undoubtedly a bus made for adventure. Taking her back to Maui the following weekend seemed like desertion.

‘Look after her,’ I said to Jean. ‘I will,’ he said, affectionately patting her stubby snout.

Cracks with attitude
Whoever named the Wolfberg was probably recalling being swallowed by an extraordinary traverse known as the Wolfberg Cracks. They are so utterly beautiful, awe inspiring and scary they should be declared a World Heritage Site and have signs declaring: ‘BEWARE! Magic afoot’.

For your information, there are dragons in the Cederberg. Manticore glower from the high peaks, chenoo hurl gnarled trees, boggarts bustle below cliff walls, trolls grizzle quietly over their goblin hordes and dark doppelgangers flicker at the edge of your sight.

If you don’t already know about these creatures, it’s because satyrs weave spells of forgetfulness around hikers and foresters who traverse these wild Cape mountains. Afterwards you think they were just rocks.

These mountain bones have had a tough time since they were deposited as beach sand and estuarine sludge in a shallow Gondwanaland bay some 350-million years ago. Over the top of them came the more fertile Bokkeveld Shales – clayey deposits of huge, linear lagoons – followed in turn by sterile sea sands of the Witteberg Group.

Then, as the super-continent of Gondwanaland fractured, these sandstone and shale layers were squeezed into tectonic ripples and pushed up out of the sea where wind, water and temperature sliced off the Witteberg and Bokkeveld layers and did some serious damage to the Table Mountain Sandstone underneath.

In some places the folds arched six kilometres vertically into the sky before being ground down to size. The result, for good reason, is called the Cape Folded Mountains.

The savage spirit of the Ordovician and Jurassic periods clearly became trapped in the slumbering sandstone because – when time and water sculpted the rocky landscape – frightening creatures began to emerge and to glower upon the puny human hikers who’d supplanted them.

The route to the Cracks winds up from Sanddrif. Gargoyles loomed threateningly as we approached the cliff face and the path plunged into the mouth of one of them. We were spat out higher up after struggling in the dark and were immediately confronted by immense towers of golden sandstone. Another dark scramble later, we were beneath a breathtaking span of rock arching high overhead.

Our test of courage was a back slide under a boulder wedged in a crack that would be a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare. But hey, the view from the top is doubly ‘wow’ and you can descend by an easier route. Just mind out for the boggarts.

Cedars in decline
There are few specimens of these trees (Widdringtonia cedarbergensis) after which the Cederberg range was named and they’re an endangered hardwood today. In the 1800s, the trees were in great demand as poles and planks. In 1883 alone, more than 7 000 cedars were felled to become poles for the telegraph line between Calvinia and Piketberg. At that stage, heavy deforestation over the preceding 100 years had already brought the species to the brink of extinction.

Travel adviser

How to get there
Take the N7 from Cape Town through Malmesbury and Piketberg. Turn right at the signpost to Algeria, which is about 26 km beyond the turn-off to Citrusdal. It’s about 17 km on gravel road to Algeria where you can camp or hire a cottage from CapeNature, tel 0861-227-362-8873, web www.capenature.org.za. From Algeria the road continues up Uitkyk Pass and into a long valley. Sanddrif is 46 km from the N7 turnoff and will be obvious from its vineyards. Book in at the main office. Trail maps, wine and basic supplies can be obtained from the office.

How much it costs
Camper vans can be hired from Maui Motorhomes and come in various sizes, sleeping two, four or five people and are priced from R730 to R1 100 a day, unlimited mileage, excluding insurance (R140 to R200 a day). Tel 0861-628- 472, e-mail teresa@maui.co.za, web www.maui.co.za.

$ Sanddrif has self-catering holiday cottages and campsites. The former cost R600 a night for four people and R75 for each additional person. Bedding and towels are included. The largest cottage can take 10 people. There’s electricity and good ablution facilities. Camping is R100 a site a night for up to four people and R20 for each extra person. Tel 027-482-2825, e-mail sanddrif@cederbergwine.com or web www.cederbergwine.com.