OF MOUNTAIN AND MUSES Introduction to the Baviaanskloof ( abstracts from the original article) " It's easy to gloss over the Baviaanskloof on a map of the Eastern Cape. Instead, Robyn Daly paused a while in the valley to ponder nature's slow process of mountain building - and Thomas Bain's ingenuity in cutting roads through them." - GETAWAY - November 1999 There's something about a map that reminds me of poetry. It's in the seemingly effortless precision, the sense that every word and line speaks volumes, and the certainty that between the lines there's a wealth of untold significance. So much is left to your imagination. On a good map, just as in a good poem, you're bound to find something new with each reading. It was while reading map poetry that I came across a thin red line in the Eastern Cape which trickled between the Baviaanskloof and Kouga Mountains. The Baviaanskloof portion was like a wistful lyric, touched on lightly by the cartographer's pen with barely a clue as to what the place is about. Punctuated by an ellipsis, the map bore three dots with alliterative names: Studtis lay to the west, Sandvlakte was in the centre and Smitskraal to the east. The red line of the road gave the lyric it's theme, following the course of the Baviaanskloof River and modified by mountain contours. Altitude markers for the highest peaks hinted at a rythm and insisted on a greater significance. But that's as far as the lyric went. To find out more, I would either have to hunt down an epic 1:50 000 map or go there myself. The lure was too great and the hint that the road was built by Thomas Bain was all I needed to start packing. It has been said that Southern Africa is like the toe of on old boot and the Cape Folded Mountains are the creases which formed as the continent curled upwards some 300 million years ago. My map of the Baviaanskloof showed that the Kouga and Baviaanskloof mountains were indeed part of the boot, but it wasn't until I slipped into the first narrow gorge at Nuwekloof Pass that I understood just how weathered and worn that shoe had become. I had entered the Baviaanskloof from the Uniondale side in the west. As my map's cartographer had been at pains to conjure, this was the broadest section of the kloof. Peach-coloured Table Mountain Sandstone wrinkles slumped amid a grey haze of Karoo shrubland mingled with rhenosterbos. All in all it was a fairly typical Karoo landscape, made from batter lumpier than the characterisitc pancake mix further north. Nuwe Kloof Pass was the official start of the kloof. At it's most daring the pass dipped into the dry bed of the Baviaanskloof River and followed it as it twisted through a deep gorge walled by sheer, russet cliffs. I stopped my Nissan Sani and stared in awe at the gash in the continental boot, marvelling at the genius of the road builder, Thomas Bain. Constructed between 1880 and 1890, it was among the last roads built by Bain ( he died in 1893 ) and it is by far the longest of the 24 roads and mountain passes which bear his mark. Although not in the same engineering league as his routes over the Swartberg or Outeniqua ranges, it could be compared to the Tsitsikamma road which, incidently, was it's inspiration. While the forest road was being completed in the early 1880's, Bain was already arguing for connection roads to the east-west highway which would make it more accessible and vauable to the rest of the country. Had I known at the time that I was sipping the Champagne stretch first I would have savoured it longer. But my map showed the Nuwe Kloof Pass as a brief squiggle and suggested that mind-boggling loops lay ahead in the eastern half. In hindsight the Nuwekloof Pass - for its looming impressiveness - is the most spectacular section of Bain's road, althoug not the most intricate engineering feat. Besides a concrete causeway to keep the road in place during the flash floods ( which have been known to plague the west of the kloof), there was little other evidence of human intervention. In another sense it was a fine effort, for Bain's famous 'theodorlite eye' had seen a natural line in the landscape which required the least muscle power. Despite the farming and aided by Cape Nature Conservation's efforts to expand the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area ( a U-shaped reserve currently occupying 180 000 hectares), the valley retains a fabulous biodiversity. It's the meeting place for three major biomes and five veld types and is home to more than 1,200 plant species, including the rare endemic Willowmore cedar ( Widdringtonia schwartzii ). Because of its size and durable timber, the tree was once harvested intensively. Now all that remains are small clums of trees hiding in inaccessible ravines and the odd stunted specimen cowering along the moutaintops, visible only to the trained eye. Every second bird was a fork-tailed drongo, but there were also nedickys, plain-backed pipits, rufous-naped larks, brown-hooded kingfishers and more than anough mousebirds. Numerous baboon families, small herds of kudu and a lone eland made up the mammalian sightings. As I travelled east, the Baviaanskloof and Kouga mountains encroached on the valley ever-more closely. The road lashed back and forth among mighty monuments to titonic forces. Each bend revealed startling new spectacles of rough-hewn sculptures in rusty shades of iron oxides leeched from the rock. I followed the road as it ran steadily upwards, pausing at the top of Grassneck Pass to admire Scholtzberg in the north and to check its height ( 1 626 metres ) on my map, before plunging into the valley of Rooihoek. The campsite nestles beneath sheer walls of red rock converging at right angles. There the rver swells into the a large pool which I scouted unsuccessfuly for the rare red-finned minnows. I pitched my tent near a sign which warned of buffalo and hoped they would have the decency not to trample me in the night. Until farmers settled there and shot out most of the game, the valley contained a wide variety of species. Cape mountain zebra, red hartebeest, buffalo and eland have since been added to existing bush pig, klipspringer, grysbok, grey rhebok, bushbuck, mountain reedbuck and duiker. There is evidence to suggest brown hyena, African wildcat, Cape fox, black rhino and blue duiker once lived there. A Family of baboons serenaded the evening, their barks echoing off the rocks. This added an eeriness to Rooihoek which was intensified by the silver-lined clouds crowding in over the mountains. The following morning was drizzly and cold. I packed my tent and spread out the soggy flysheet to dry in the back of the Sani before setting off for the third pass on Bain's road. In the sense that it's the last opportunity to view the entire valley, the Holgat Mountain Pass marks the end of the Baviaanskloof. From the top you get an idea of the extent of the valley's fault line and the enormity of the forces which buckled and pitted in the earth's crust. Beyond this last outpost lay a plateau of mountain fynbos before the road pluged into the Combrinck's Mountain Pass. There evidence of Bain's ingenuity abounded. He had cut into the sides of the mountains in a series of daring switchbacks, at times with only a low, dry stone wall to keep the road from sliding into ravines. At it's foot, Combrinck's Pass snaked into the dense riverine forest, criss-crossing the convergent forces of the Kouga and the Baviaanskloof River so often I eventually lost count. The final squiggle on the map- the Grootriver Poort - followed the incisions of the Groot River as it sluiced through slabs of grey-speckled Table mountain Sandstone adorned with acid green and yellow-lichens. I pulled over to the side to mark the poort on my map. When pencil scribbles at every twist and turn, themap bore little resemblance to the cartographer's lyric which had first compelled me to visit the Baviaanskloof. By then it had been transformed into something of a crude travelogue. The thin red line- on close inspection it was actually two fine parallel capillaries with white between them indicate a gravel road- was still visible through layers of lead. If this map was indeed a kind of poem, then it drew its energy from two wells of inspiration in the Baviaanskloof: time, which shaped rivers and mountains; and Thomas Bain, without whom there would be no red line trickling between the mountains. I guess you could say Bain was the cartographer's muse- and a traveller's one also. " |