The Griqua Tour

Following on from ‘The Philippolis Tour’, this article is a memorial to the Griqua people who trekked from Philippolis, across the southern reaches of what was then Basutoland, before briefly settling near modern-day Matatiele.

- Nick Yell

From there they moved a little east to a better situated region and founded the town of Kokstad (after Adam Kok III) where they settled for 15 years before being taken advantage of by colonial settlers, and then annexed by the Cape Colony after which their independent natures scattered them to the winds once more.

“Nou praat ons,”opined Jaco as we stopped a little way into our first dirt track out of town. We had both done far too much tar on our individual trips into Philippolis the day before and were excited at the prospect of the next leg of our journey; first to Matatiele on Day 1 (a distance of around 450 km – 60/40 dirt over tar) and then onto Underberg the next day (245 km – 50/50 dirt vs. tar). But, as with most adventure biking trips, no itinerary is certain.

The 47 km of varied surfaces led us through a series of koppies punctuating this cross-over region of grassland and succulent Karoo biomes; the tops of the rises along its path revealing the serene and expansive Karoo veld-scapes this region is renowned for.

Sooner than we hoped we faced a T-junction with the tar. It offered us a choice of Springfontein left, or Bethulie (via the N1) to the right. I was keen to take a look at this town as its one of the few Karoo dorpies that has evaded me over the years. Twice I’ve had plans to stay there and twice my plans were thwarted by complications on the way.

But after a quick ride through the remnants of this once strategically important railway junction between East London and the north, as well as the old diamond-mining centre of Koffiefontein, its many dilapidated buildings and potholebombed streets proved the Gods had been kind in steering me away from this town on previous occasions. Even the decent-looking façade of the old city hall proved to be propped up by a crumbling building behind.