The Old Postal Road
Up in the Cederburg mountains, a trail links Biedow Camp and the Tankwa Karoo Reserve across a mountain plateau. The name comes from the 1800’s when a 19 year old girl was said to have delivered the post between the two by taking a 2 day walk each way along the 57 km track.
Now it is just a twin-rutted trail that winds across rocks and sand, and needs a 4×4 to make it through. But it has magnificent scenery and surprises, not least being large fields cleared of rocks, planted with rooibos tea. These were being hand harvested in what must seem like a never-ending task.
Rough as it was, it was luxury compared to the ‘road’ between Majtiesrivier and Wuppertal! Probably built by trainee Lesotho road-makers, it gives some new definition to the meaning of rough! Astonishingly, between the very worst bits, there is a little community at Eselbrook, but heaven knows how they manage to scratch a living and also get their supplies there. Evidently they get few visitors (not surprisingly), as everyone waved and said good morning as we crawled through.
Towing our camping trailer added to the challenge, but we survived the trails without a scratch, at least until we got back on the ‘main’ dirt road. We then picked up a puncture some distance down it, followed by a total tyre-shred of a nearly new tyre some 20km later. Fortunately we had two spares with us, but it took a few days to get sorted on our return.
Cederburg – yet another astonishingly wild and beautiful place to visit in this wonderful country!
Freebooter 