Trygve Roberts
Pack Dog
- Joined
- May 20, 2014
- Messages
- 391
- Reaction score
- 1
- Bike
- BMW R1200GS Adventure
The mountain range separating Springbok from Port Nolloth and Hondeklipbaai proved to be a formidable obstacle to the copper wagons in the late 1800's and early 1900's with most of the wagons losing more than 30% of the ore due to the bad roads. The old route through the Messelpad and Wildeperdehoek passes was finally abandoned (and left to deteriorate into a 4x4 route in a sort of estate agent's version of a renovator's dream slogan) for a better port when Port Nolloth proved to be superior to Hondeklipbaai.
In the process a new route was built on a more direct routing between Springbok and Port Nolloth via a farm at the foot of the mountains, called Spektakel. It was this farm which loaned its name to the 'new' road that wound laboriously up the mountains. It's been rebuilt three times since 1910 and the most recent version is a terrific road, offering expansive Namaqualand views, steep cuttings and beautifully banked and shaped chicane style corners.
This pass is a joy to ride and has a good safety record too. Of note is the huge amount of broken glass near the foot of the pass - about 2 kms of it on both sides of the road. The volume is so big, that we decided to have a closer look. The answer - almost exclusively beer bottles. The only conclusion we came to was that the local miners get bored and drive out to foot of pass, where smashing a beer bottle on the side of road helps in some way to compensate for the absence of women. Well....maybe not. Anyone got any theories?
Take 4 minutes and cyber drive it here if you don't know the pass.
https://bit.ly/2eUTNS2
In the process a new route was built on a more direct routing between Springbok and Port Nolloth via a farm at the foot of the mountains, called Spektakel. It was this farm which loaned its name to the 'new' road that wound laboriously up the mountains. It's been rebuilt three times since 1910 and the most recent version is a terrific road, offering expansive Namaqualand views, steep cuttings and beautifully banked and shaped chicane style corners.
This pass is a joy to ride and has a good safety record too. Of note is the huge amount of broken glass near the foot of the pass - about 2 kms of it on both sides of the road. The volume is so big, that we decided to have a closer look. The answer - almost exclusively beer bottles. The only conclusion we came to was that the local miners get bored and drive out to foot of pass, where smashing a beer bottle on the side of road helps in some way to compensate for the absence of women. Well....maybe not. Anyone got any theories?
Take 4 minutes and cyber drive it here if you don't know the pass.
https://bit.ly/2eUTNS2
