What's in the news this week?

* Easter message

* Coverage of days 3 & 4 of the Ben 10 Tour with overview videos

* Podcast (Bastervoetpad Pass)

* Tours updates

* A life lesson from Mark Twain

EASTER - We wish all of our subscribers and followers (currently 19,000!) safe travels this Easter weekend. Make sure you arrive alive and more importantly that you return alive too. Accident statistics over Easter are frightening, so take care and drive defensively. Get off the main routes. Use our master map to plan a slower more interesting, safer and relaxing route to your destination.

Notre-Dame - With the burning of one of the most iconic churches in the world and billions of Euros already being pledged for its reconstruction, we thought it would be fitting to use a simple little country church for our Easter photo, which was taken near the Bastervoetpad Pass. Simplicity itself and a raw beauty in it's own right.

TOURS UPDATES

21st April - Merino Monster Tour - Bookings have closed.

17th - 19th May - Great Swartberg Tour - Fully booked.

21st - 23rd June - Thomas Bain Heritage Tour - 5 places left.

In the planning room:

September - Ben 10 Eco Challenge (Version 2). 5 days of mud and glory (and maybe some snow). Get your name down on the advance priority list.

October/November - Sani Pass/Lesotho/Katse Dam. 4 days. Get your name down on the advance priority list.

Create your own tour: Plan a tour that you think would be a winner and send it in to us and qualify for a 30% rebate if we use it. Some factors to consider. Accommodation and meals for around 25 people. Fuel availability. Distances less than 250 km per day. Tour length can be between 1 and 5 days. Send it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

PUBLIC SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS: We will do a presentation at your function at no charge on the proviso it's within 30 km of Cape Town. Call us on 083 658 8888 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

PODCAST - A discussion on some of the challenges facing drivers on Day 2 of the Ben 10 Tour. LISTEN

BEN 10 ECO CHALLENGE TOUR
We take you through Day 3 and the dramatic 4th and final day of the tour when the happenings on Bastervoetpad meant we had to implement a number of alternative arrangements. [More lower down...]

This weeks highlights

* Day 2 of the Ben 10 Eco Challenge Official Tour

* Tours update

* Baviaanskloof flood damage update

* Two new podcasts

BEN 10 ECO CHALLENGE OFFICIAL TOUR

The adventurous and sometimes dangerous tour tested our skills and experience to the limits as we struggled with not only our own convoy of 15 vehicles but also two other groups numbering around 10 vehicles who arrived at the western start of Bastervoetpad more or less at the same time. It soon became evident that we needed to assist some of the bikers in other groups, who were taking regular falls on the ascent. [More lower down...]

TOURS CALENDAR UPDATE

April 21st - Waboomsberg/Merino Monster - A mostly gravel, one day trip near Ceres of 145 km with one of the main passes being on private land. 5 places open. Bookings close April 17th.
Book online: MERINO MONSTER TOUR

May 17th to 19th - Great Swartberg Tour (1 place open due to a cancellation) - Latest edit: 13h50 Ticket sold!
Book Online: GREAT SWARTBERG TOUR

June 21st to 24th - Thomas Bain Heritage Tour (7 places left)
Book online: THOMAS BAIN HERITAGE TOUR

Inquiries: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 083 658 8888

None of the above trips are suited to camping. No pets allowed (as we enter many nature reserves). Average accommodation costs are approximately R500 per person per night.

PODCASTS

This week we offer two new podcasts which include details of the recent Baviaanskloof floods as well as an interview discussion around Day 1 of the Ben 10 Tour. [More lower down]

The Ben 10 Wash-up

Last week we gave you an overview of the Ben 10 Eco Challenge Official Tour. This week we look into the first of the four days in more detail which illustrates the human interactions as the large group of people slowly bonded together to form a cohesive unit, taking care of each other, to ensure a successful outcome for all. The full story encompassing 23 chapters will be published over the next 3 weeks and thereafter will be permanently embedded under a separate menu tab on the main Ben 10 page. [More lower down...]

Wapadsberg/Merino Monster Tour

Our next 1 day tour in the Western Cape takes place on Easter Sunday (21st April) and includes 3 gravel and 3 tarred passes in the mountains north of Ceres. The route includes the magnificent Droelandskloof Pass with the anchor pass being the ascent and descent of the Wapadsberg Pass - a major climb to an amazing view-site. The route is suitable for any vehicle with reasonable ground clearance. We still have space left, so if you're looking for something different to do over that long Easter break, bring the whole family along as our prices are per vehicle and not per person. Book online here.

The Thomas Bain Heritage Tour

This brand new bespoke tour will take place during June or July over three days starting in George and ending in Patensie. It will include the 7 Passes Road, Gouna Pass, Kom se Pad, Prince Alfred's Pass, Uniondale Poort > Overnight in Uniondale for some spookstories.

Day 2 will route through a southern approach to the stunning Nuwekloof Pass and down into the western Baviaanskloof where we will visit a tree house, the Makedaat caves, a bonsai nursery and negotiate the 8 water crossings through Studtis Poort with an overnight stop at the Zandvlakte guest farm.

Day 3 will be spent exploring the Baviaanskloof eastern bio-reserve and include the passes of Grasnek, Langkop, Holgat and Combrinks with an overnight stop at Bruintjieskraal on the banks of the Grootrivier. The next day a short drive out through the Grootrivierpoort will end the tour at Patensie. No less than 12 of the passes on this tour were either designed or built by Thomas Bain. Bookings for this tour will open in a week's time. The tour is only open to 4WD vehicles.

April Fool

We also examine the April Fools Day phenomenon and explore the extraordinary success of our April's Fool post on Facebook. At the time of writing the post had 41,778 views over a 72 hour period. Remarkably the post (which took 5 minutes to knock together) ranks as one of our most successful posts ever. Understanding the power of social media is complex with this post knocking all the standard barriers down. [More lower down...]

Featured pass of the week

In keeping with our theme on the challenge passes, we feature another of the big 10 passes in the Eastern Cape Highlands. [More lower down]

BEN 10 ECO CHALLENGE OFFICIAL TOUR ~ An adventure of epic proportions

It's hard to believe just 7 days have passed since we left for the inaugural Ben 10 Eco-Challenge Official Tour. Despite our meticulous planning, Mother Nature - or in this case "Mokholo" - (the Great Mother) taught even the most experienced off-roaders amongst us a lesson or three.

Compressing this epic adventure into one news release is almost impossible. We will be serialising it over a week or two to bring you the full story in glorious Eastern Cape technicolour, with all the drama, intrigue and suspense of an adventure the 36 participants, who ranged from 8 to 76 years, will never forget as long as they live.

The 6 months of planning predictably had to cope with that ever changing game changer - the weather. We studied the weather history for the area going back 20 years and decided that late March would be an almost perfect time of year to run the tour, with not much rain and beautiful green scenery for all the participants.

In an effort to provide our guests with a convenient accommodation option, we decided to base ourselves at the Mountain Shadows Hotel near the summit of the Barkly Pass, for the 5 days of the tour. This allowed the group to travel light and efficiently each day and in addition we had the benefit of a daily meeting place of comfort and space to accommodate such a big group.

[Read more lower down]

As you read this newsletter, the MPSA team are somewhere between Lundin's Neck and Jouberts Pass on Day 1 of the Official Ben 10 Eco Challenge Tour. A massive amount of planning went into this trip and now it's only matters beyond our control (like the weather), that can affect the adventure. We will do our best to post regular pics and short videos on our Facebook page throughout the tour.

Our featured pass this week takes us right back to our roots and the peculiar set of circumstances of how Mountain Passes South Africa was born. The GoPro HERO1 had just been launched in 2010/11 and I had always wanted a waterproof video camera that could handle the rigours of adventure sports and film in HD.

The primary idea was to film my crew on a sailing/racing yacht with the idea being to iron out errors and improve performance. On the very first outing with the new GoPro, when the yacht club cancelled racing due to gale force winds, we decided to rather go for a sail than sit in the pub.

From there things went south rapidly (pun intended) as we planed out of the harbour at high speed and out onto Table Bay to enjoy the full power of the Cape Doctor. Just as we reached a speed of 20 knots (37 kph) we broached (a nautical term for a downwind capsize). [Read more lower down]