Access the inaccessible.Create the unforgettable.
Three days in the places South Africa forgot, in the luxury 4×4 you already own. Four cars. A night in a hotel on the beach, a night under canvas with a chef and champagne, and a road most people only read about in between.
In the brochure, your car was standing on a mountain. You have never been.
Forgotten Routes takes owners of luxury 4×4s to that mountain. Your own luxury 4×4, exactly as it was delivered, following a lead car that is just as standard down a road most people only read about. The evening before, a hotel on the beach at Mossel Bay. That night, a private camp with a king bed, a chef and a bottle on ice. Nothing about the car changes. Everything about how you see it does. And if you are flying in, one of our own cars will be waiting for you.
One a month. At the end of the month.
Each is three days, packaged: a hotel on the beach at Mossel Bay the afternoon before, a road most people only read about, a night under canvas with a chef and champagne. Four cars, then it closes.
Die Hel
Over the Swartberg and down the ladder into a valley that had no road until 1962. The night under canvas is in the kloof itself.
The expedition →
Baviaanskloof
A hundred and seventy kilometres of gravel, river beds and passes with no fuel, no signal and no shortcut out. The harder one to get a place on.
The expedition →
Louvain
Bain's old pass in the morning, a night under canvas on the farm, then the ox-wagon track over the mountain with the sea on one side and the Karoo on the other.
The expedition →
The road.
The ladder into Gamkaskloof. The river crossings of the Baviaanskloof. The ox-wagon track over the Outeniqua. Whichever it is, the lead car goes first, in low range, on the same wheels the factory fitted, and you follow its line. Somewhere around the second hairpin you understand what the engineers built, and why nobody told you.
The three expeditions →
The arrival.
The camp is standing when you round the last bend. Champagne on ice. A private walk-in suite for each car: king bed, pressed white linen, air-conditioning, and an outdoor shower with nothing between you and the cliff. Dust on the doors. A hotel on the inside.
The camp →
The night.
Fire, and a chef. Karoo lamb that has been in the pot since lunch, bread from the coals, wine from over the mountain. Four cars' worth of people who have just done what you have. The quietest sleep in the country under canvas, after a night on the beach the evening before.
Choose a date →Five-star. In a kloof.
These are not tents in the camping sense. They are hotel suites that happen to be standing in a kloof, made up each morning, taken down after you leave.
Your luxury 4×4. As delivered.
Every expedition is led by a luxury 4×4 exactly as the factory built it. Nothing we ask of your car, ours has not just done, ten metres ahead of you.
No lift. No armour. No modifications beyond a set of standard-size all-terrain tyres. Every crossing is driven in the lead car the week before and again on the morning. The most careful driver sets the pace. Anything that goes wrong on the mountain is ours to put right.
You ask. We call.
One expedition a month, at the end of the month. Four cars on each. When a date fills, it closes, and the next is offered to the waiting list before anyone else hears of it.
Tell us what you drive
Make, model, and what has been done to it. Standard and near-standard luxury 4×4s are offered places first.
A person reads it
Within two days you hear from one of us, with the details, the number and a date, or with your place on the list.
Arrive with a full tank
The route, the camp, the chef, the champagne and the photograph are ours to arrange.
Four cars. Two nights. Ask, and we will tell you if there is room.
Tell us what you drive and when you would like to come. Every request is read by a person, and a person calls you back.