Route 62 and Swartberg Pass · part 2

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Cape Town

   Cape Town sits at the foot of Table Mountain, a flat-topped sandstone wall about a kilometre high, and on a day when the tablecloth of cloud spills over the edge it is one of the great sights of the world. The city lies between the mountain and the Atlantic, with a harbour that was founded in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company as a supply station for ships on the route to the East. It grew into a port of many cultures, and the mix of Dutch, Malay, African and British influences is still visible in its food, language and architecture.

   Read the complete Cape Town write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Route 62 and Swartberg Pass photo pull-off is where the day begins. Next is Food stop near Moorreesburg.

2. 2. Food stop near Moorreesburg

   Planning note

   Food stop near Moorreesburg is where this day stops to eat. Next is Cape Town / Western Cape.

3. 3. Cape Town / Western Cape

   The valley is a quiet pocket of the Winelands ringed by the Witzenberg and Winterhoek ranges, and the town has the longest row of preserved Cape Dutch buildings in the country on Church Street. On the night of the twenty-ninth of September 1969, an earthquake of magnitude six-point-three shook the town, damaging most of those buildings. Restoration took years, and the street today looks as it did in the eighteenth century, a remarkable act of collective repair.

   Read the complete Cape Town / Western Cape write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 360 km.