Route 62 South Africa

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

   Cape Town is where the day begins. Next is Worcester.

2. 2. Worcester

   Worcester, in the Western Cape, is the largest town in the Breede River Valley and the traditional beginning of the Route 62 for many travellers, a place of about a hundred and twenty-seven thousand people at the foot of the Hex River Mountains. It sits at the edge of the Cape winelands and it feels it. Vineyards climb the slopes behind the town, irrigated fields spread across the valley floor, and the peaks above turn pink and purple at sunset. In winter they carry snow, a surprise to anyone who thinks of South Africa as permanently warm.

   Read the complete Worcester write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Worcester comes up about 110 km into the recorded legs. Next is Montagu.

3. 3. 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

   about 184 km into the recorded legs you reach Montagu. Next is Barrydale.

4. 4. 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, about halfway. Next is Oudtshoorn.

5. 5. 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

   Oudtshoorn sits at 1232 km, late in the day. Next is Port Elizabeth.

6. 6. Port Elizabeth

   Port Elizabeth was founded in 1820 as a landing place for British settlers, who came by sea to Algoa Bay in a scheme to strengthen the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. Sir Rufane Donkin, the acting governor, named the settlement after his late wife, Elizabeth, and built a stone pyramid on a hill in her memory, which still stands in the park that bears his name. The city has been renamed Gqeberha officially, but the old name persists on road signs and in daily speech, and its history is tied to the nineteenth-century wool trade and later to the car industry.

   Read the complete Port Elizabeth 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 782 km.