Ride the secret Baviaans

The greater Baviaanskloof region is much more than just the famous gorge. In the north, between the imposing Grootrivier, Groot Winterhoek and Baviaanskloof mountains lies a network of excellent gravel roads and great farm stays that have long begged to be explored... especially on two wheels.

- PIERRE STEYN

It feels like I'm alone in a landscape where the last humans and domesticated animals have long since ground to dust. My riding partners are miles behind. This morning, on a smooth gravel road that gradually sweeps downhill for kilometres, with only slight inclines here and there, I give my bike free rein.

It's overcast and there are gunmetal clouds stacking up over the Groot Winterhoek Mountains. Cool but not cold - the perfect weather for long-distance cycling, provided it doesn't rain. A once-stately Karoo farmhouse, now a ruin, drifts past. I wonder what happened to the people who lived there? There's no sheep, cow, goat or chicken to be seen here, no fencing either. It's just me, my thoughts and the hypnotic sound of bicycle tyres crunching gravel.

The road follows a dry tributary of the Groot River, where sweet thorn and karee trees stitch a green seam through shrubland and sunburnt rock.

Then I get the fright of my life as I hear branches crack and stones clatter. First one, then two, no five kudus burst out of the treeline and scamper across the road in front of me, vanishing up a ridge.

Mid-gasp, a warthog (probably flushed by the kudus) darts in front of my bike and sets off along the road like a hare in the headlights of a farm bakkie. He swerves left, right and then left again before his short legs carry him into the bushes to safety. I shoot past, my heart hammering.

I'm not as alone as I thought... There might not be people here, but there's lots of life, as if nature wants to reclaim the environment for itself again.

To the Karoo