Pakhuis Mojo

You’ll find it on a back road that climbs from Clanwilliam into the Cederberg’s rugged wilderness

- Ron Swilling

High above Clanwilliam, the craggy Cederberg mountains reign supreme. It is here among the sandstone rocks that biomes meet, Cape leopards prowl and ancient paintings adorn rock overhangs, revealing a time when elephants still roamed the Cape and hunter-gatherers drank from the mountain streams.

The Pakhuis Pass, said to be named because of the rocks packed on top of each other, as you would find goods in a pakhuis (packing shed), links Clanwilliam to the Calvinia farming region. Thomas Bain, responsible for building many of the Cape’s mountain passes (as was his father Andrew Geddes Bain), started work on the pass in 1874, completing it in 1877. It was widened and reworked in the 1960s, and gradually tarred over the years, transforming the journey into an easy drive.

For the first 21 kilometres, the pass snakes through the rugged rock, and rises to 905 metres above sea level, before descending into the valley of a more agricultural area known as Agter-Pakhuis. The entire tarred stretch from Clanwilliam to a grave at the far end, dubbed the Englishman’s Grave, is a 41-kilometre Pakhuis feast.

From here on, corrugated gravel roads continue to Calvinia and veer off to the Bidouw Valley and the small hamlet of Wuppertal, an area characterised by weathered rock formations that resemble rocky forts, larger-than-life faces and mythological creatures.

“When I drive into Clanwilliam, I feel like I’m landing.” Becky Cooper puts my sentiments into words as she describes driving down to town from the heights of the pass. We sit outside at Alpha Excelsior Guest Farm. A few friendly Labradors and Border Collies mill around Becky’s toddler, Emily, and the last boulderers of the season sip cappuccinos on the stoep. Next to us runs a stream, around us are farmlands and in the distance loom the mountains.