Sketch by Burchill of Karoopoort

Early in the 18th century cattle-farmers had already moved into the region with their cattle. Due to the mountainous nature of the region, suitable passes and roads were essential from the start. Most of the passes were made in game paths and thoroughfares used by the Khoekhoen and the San. The passes that originally gave access to the Warm and Cold Bokkeveld were the Elandskloof Pass, the Witzenberg and Skurweberg Passes as well as Mostershoek, Michell’s Pass, Swaarmoed Pass, Gydo Pass, Karoopoort, Theronsberg and Hottentotskloof, Katbakkies and Skittery-/Spesery-kloof, Droëlandskloof and Miskloof. Elandskloof between Citrusdal and the Cold Bokkeveld is one of the oldest passes used by the stock-farmers. It was replaced by the Middelberg Pass only in the 1940s. Famous travellers who travelled through Elandskloof were Carl Thunberg (1773) and John Barrow (1798).

The Witzenberg and Skurweberg Passes provided a thoroughfare between Tulbagh and the Cold Bokkeveld and the forerunners of these passes were already in use early in the 18th century. It was very dangerous; Thunberg referred to it in 1772. Field-cornet Pieter Pienaar built a better pass in 1780 because it was essential for residents of the Cold Bokkeveld to get to Tulbagh for official and church business. On the completion of Michell’s Pass in 1848 the use of the Witzenberg Pass decreased and it became obsolete.

The Mostertshoek Pass was built by a farmer, Jan Mostert, of the farm Wolwekloof in 1765. This road was used until Michell’s Pass was built in 1848. Grooves in the pass are a sign of wagons struggling over it through the years.

Wagon wheel tracks engraved in the rock in the Mosterskhoek Pass

Michell’s Pass was built by Andrew Geddes Bain and opened in 1848. The pass was named after Charles Michell, surveyor-general of the Cape Colony. The toll-house in the pass was erected in 1848 and the Greybrug, a stone structure of 12m in height, was built over the Breede River. This bridge was later on washed away and replaced by the Witbrug.

Little information is available about the Swaarmoed Pass and its mate, but some road works have been retained. The remains of a bridge on Lakenvlei Pass and an indication on maps, confirm that these were in fact official passes. The remains of the pass used between the Warm Bokkeveld and the eastern plateau can still be seen between Eselfontein and Welvaart. Another pass that was used at the beginning of the 19th century and of which some remains are still visible, is the one between Lakenvlei and Draaihoek. A traveller, Lichtenstein, travelled through here in 1805 and reported that he left the Warm Bokkeveld at Leeufontein and immediately reached the plateau at Lakenvlei.

The initial history of Theronsberg and Hottentotskloof is unclear. Before the middle of the 19th century there must have been a road here, because in 1812 reference was made to the condition of the roads in an official report, and Hottentotskloof was specifically mentioned.

Andrew Geddes Bain completed the Gydo Pass in 1848. Before its completion, in fact since the early 18th century, travellers travelled across the mountain by wagon-road. The pass was improved in the 1930s and tarred in the 1950s.

Gydopass

Trek farmers used Karoopoort from the early 18th century. The builder of the road is unknown, but Adam de Smit and Bain have been mentioned.

Passes that gave access to various areas in the form of trek roads were, for example, Katbakkies and Skitterykloof (Speserykloof). The famous writer, Boerneef, immortalised the sheep trek to the Ceres Karoo through here in his boek Boplaas. Droëlandskloof is north of Karoopoort and the passes through here link Wamakershoogte and Hoop-en-Uitkomst with Rooifontein in the Ceres Karoo. Miskloof is situated furthest south and was mainly a trek-road, but during the Anglo-Boer War a British guard post was established there and entrenchments from that period have been left almost undamaged in the kloof.
The Piet Esterhuysen road in a remote valley, Baliesgat, also deserves to be mentioned. This valley was explored and developed in the 19th century. In 1915 the original entrance to the Valley was very run-down and offered only a footpath contact with the outside world. All products from and to the valley had to be transported by pack animals. In 1945, Esterhuysen, a local farmer, began to build a road that was opened in 1951.

View on Pass build by Pieter Esterhuysen