Three days through a valley with no fuel, no signal and no shortcut out, where the road passes trees that were old before anyone wrote anything down. A night in a hotel on the beach at Mossel Bay to begin, then a night under canvas in the middle of it, with the chef and the champagne.
The Baviaanskloof is a valley nearly two hundred kilometres long, held between two mountain ranges, and it has been left alone for a very long time.
It is part of the Cape Floral Region World Heritage Site, and most of South Africa's biomes meet inside it: fynbos on the ridges, thicket in the kloofs, Karoo scrub on the dry flats, forest along the water. Leopards still live in the side valleys. The San painted on the rock overhangs, the Khoikhoi herded through it, and the handful of families who farm here now still fetch their water from springs that have not stopped running.
This is why we run it. The gravel is the excuse. What you are actually driving through is the oldest, quietest and least understood piece of country most South Africans will ever see, and the luxury 4×4 in your garage is the only civilised way in.
Every Forgotten Routes expedition begins in the same place: a hotel on the beach at Mossel Bay, forty minutes from George airport.
Arrive when you like in the afternoon. Settle in, walk on the sand, have a bath. We meet for supper in the hotel, you meet the other three cars, and over the last glass we tell you what tomorrow looks like. If you are flying in, one of our own cars is already in the car park with the keys at reception.
In the morning the convoy leaves from the hotel with full tanks, and the road begins.
A few hours in, under a canopy of wild fig, there is a stone well that has been pushing cold, clear water through pipes laid generations ago and has never stopped.
A ranger appears from nowhere, the way rangers do, and points you to a boardwalk into the trees. "Walk that," he says. "Those trees saw the Khoikhoi ride through." The trunks are enormous. You lower your voice without deciding to. Centuries of leaves underfoot, and nothing to hear but the wind in the tops of the canopy. It is one of the quietest places in the country, and it is a ten-minute walk from where you park.
This is the part of the expedition nobody expects and everybody talks about afterwards. Not the driving. The standing still.
Past the gate the road stops pretending. The crossings start small and grow until they are deep, green and overgrown on both banks, one after another, with the mountains closing in on either side. Then the climb: loose, steep, low range and first gear, both cars crawling with the engines barely ticking over, until a bend opens onto the whole valley below you.
There are no phones up there and no engines anywhere in the distance. You get out and stand in it. People who never stop talking stop talking. You do not get silence like that at home, and it takes a minute to trust it.
The camp is standing inside the reserve on the second evening: the same king bed, the same pressed linen, the same chef and the same silent power, a long day's drive from the hotel on the beach where you woke up. The crossings and the climb are the last morning. The logistics are harder here than anywhere else we go. That is our problem to enjoy, not yours.
Day one is the beach. Day two is the long road east, the fig forest and the camp. Day three is the crossings, the climb, and out the far end of the kloof.
Arrive in the afternoon. Those flying in land at George and find their car, or one of ours, waiting. Settle in, walk on the sand, have a bath. Supper is in the hotel, at one table, and over the last glass we walk you through the two days ahead. This is the long one, and we say so.
An early convoy out of the hotel car park, over the Outeniqua Pass and up the N9 through Uniondale to Willowmore, with the country drying out and opening up around you. Tyre pressures come down where the tar ends, and the walk-around happens there: the four controls you have never pressed, ten minutes each.
The first stop is on foot. A stone-lined well and a forest of wild figs so old that the Khoikhoi rode beneath them and the Boers watered oxen under them. You stand under a canopy that was already ancient when the road was a footpath, and the expedition stops being about the car for a while.
Nuwekloof, the climb over the western passes with the valley falling away on one side, and the gate into the wilderness area. Everything past it is ours and the baboons'. Lunch is laid somewhere with a view.
Champagne on ice. A private walk-in suite for each car: king bed, pressed white linen, a fridge, air-conditioning, and an outdoor shower with nothing in front of it but the kloof. There is no signal. Nobody misses it.
Fire, and a chef who came in with the support vehicles. Karoo lamb, bread from the coals, wine from over the mountain. Four cars' worth of people who have just driven further from a tar road than they ever have, and want to talk about it. Then the darkest sky you have seen.
Breakfast with the kloof still in shadow, then the road stops pretending. The crossings start small and grow, deep and green and one after another. The climb: loose, steep, low range and first gear, until a bend opens onto the whole valley below you. Lunch at the top. Down the far side and out the eastern gate near Patensie by mid-afternoon, tyres back up to road pressure, and the drive home, having seen a piece of the country most people never will.
One price per car, for two. Everything below is in it.
A hotel on the beach at Mossel Bay. Supper with the group and the briefing.
Uniondale, Willowmore, the fig forest at Witfontein, the western passes and the reserve gate. The camp standing, the chef, the fire.
Breakfast in the kloof. The river crossings, the climb, lunch at the top, out at Patensie, home.
Baviaanskloof runs every third month, at the end of the month. Four cars at most. It is the harder expedition to stage, and the harder one to get a place on.
The Wilderness · Mossel Bay to Patensie · a hotel on the beach, a night under canvas
The Wilderness · Mossel Bay to Patensie · a hotel on the beach, a night under canvas
Guests who have done Die Hel with us are offered Baviaanskloof dates first.
Baviaanskloof places are offered to Die Hel guests first, and to the waiting list after that. Ask, and we will tell you where you stand.
