Go! Drive & Camp – September 2019

TRAILGUIDE

64 |September 2019 go!Drive& Camp

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Alberton

Warrenton

Parys

Heidelberg

Bloemhof Douglas

Meyerton

Strydenburg

Christiana

ROUTE PROFILE

light a braai fire next to your off-road

caravan in the Pear Tree campsite on the

corner of Schalkwyk and Beaufort streets. If

it’s too cold to camp, you could always stay

in one of the Rooi Granaat’s guest rooms.

THE NEXT MORNING, check out the

Old Truck Museum in Magrieta Prinsloo

Street. They’ve got several military trucks

dating from the Second World War – from

Chevrolet desert patrol lorries to an M3 half-

track personnel carrier.

But your people in the Cape are waiting

for you and it’s time to continue south

on the R381 through a riverine rabbit

conservation. Farmers here adapted their

farming methods to preserve the natural

habitat of the threatened riverine rabbit.

Watch out for these bunnies as you drive

in the dry bed of the Slangfontein River.

Halfway through the conservation area,

TOWN PROUD Loxton is a lovely town that received a big

dose of eccentricity. And it’s a good thing, too, because

the artists and writers who live here help to keep it alive.

turn right (S31.68375 E22.35808) and follow

a twin-track road to the R356. Drive through

Fraserburg with its historic architecture.

Check out the corbelled houses built by

trekboers, Cape Dutch gables, Victorian

corrugated iron roofs, Art Deco shops and a

hexagonal bell tower called the pepper pot.

The next town on your route is

Sutherland with its famous observatory.

Then you drive a section of the well-known

R356 gravel road between Ceres and

Calvinia, the longest uninterrupted gravel

road in South Africa, before a tar road leads

you through the Ceres fruit orchards.