Route 62 · short arc

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Montagu

   Montagu sits where the Little Karoo begins, in a fold of the Langeberg mountains, and the way you reach it is part of the charm. From the west, the road runs through Cogmanskloof, a narrow gorge with a short tunnel, and then the valley opens into a landscape of orchards, vineyards and red rock. The little town, with about fifteen thousand people, lines up along Long Street with Cape Dutch and Victorian houses, many carefully restored, and it has been a favourite weekend stop for people from Cape Town for decades.

   Read the complete Montagu write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Montagu is where the day begins. Next is Barrydale.

2. 2. Barrydale

   The R62 through Barrydale is a road of long distances and small surprises. The town is a modest place, sitting in the Little Karoo between the Langeberg and the Swartberg ranges, a few tidy streets, a main road, and a population of a few thousand. It was founded as a farming settlement, and its economy still depends on fruit, olives, sheep and now, increasingly, on travellers on Route 62 who stop for a meal and some air.

   Read the complete Barrydale write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Barrydale comes up about 67 km into the recorded legs. Next is Oudtshoorn.

3. 3. Oudtshoorn

   Oudtshoorn owes its elegant sandstone buildings to the feathers of a very large and bad-tempered bird. In the years before the First World War, ostrich feathers were fashionable in Europe and America, and farmers in the Little Karoo made fortunes supplying them. Merchants built grand houses known as feather palaces, with fine stonework and ornate interiors, and some of them still stand. The boom collapsed around 1914, when fashion changed and the war disrupted trade, but ostrich farming continues, now for meat, leather and tourism.

   Read the complete Oudtshoorn write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 233 km into the recorded legs you reach Oudtshoorn. Next is Kareedouw.

4. 4. Kareedouw

   Kareedouw is a farm town in the folds of the Eastern Cape, and its quiet is the first thing a rider notices after the long road. It lies on Route 62, the scenic alternative to the N2 coastal highway, in a valley between the Tsitsikamma and Kouga mountains, about forty kilometres inland from the coast near Humansdorp. The surrounding land is a patchwork of orchards, with apples and pears grown in the long valley called the Langkloof, and in spring the white and pink blossom turns the slopes into a soft cloud. In late summer and autumn the fruit is picked, and trucks carry it down to the packhouses.

   Read the complete Kareedouw write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Kareedouw closes the day.