* Wild Coast Tour (Overview)
* Trips & Tours
* Lesotho (Day 1)
* Die Hel/Gamkaskloof - Miracles do happen
* Mountain Kingdom Tour (Day 1)
* Kouga Baviaans Tour (Day 4)
* Featured Pass
* How to be mentally strong
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As usual the Wild Coast lived up to its reputation of a premier adventure destination. We had exceptional weather. Fabulous days of comfortable (shorts and T-shirt) blue sky days with minimal wind and believe it or not, no rain!
The downside of that little stroke of luck, was lots of dust, but it's the lesser of the two evils. We hiked, visited countless waterfalls, visited the Msikaba bridge, saw an extraordinary display of massed vultures flying at Msikaba Gorge, we swam in the ocean, revelled in the eye watering display of food wherever we went, (watched the scale climbing), did whale spotting, bought beads, drank coffee and too much wine, enjoyed the moonrise over a still ocean, spoke to the locals, made friends, challenged ourselves, conquered the Collywobbles, rode the Kei River Ferry and arrived at Crawfords Beach Lodge dusty and puncture free to celebrate the conclusion of a great tour. In short, it was lekker!
The Couple of the Tour Award went to two Australians, Louis and Greta Fortmann (ex South Africans) for their total attitude of kindness and positivity throughout the tour. It would seem word is getting around Down Under that South Africa is a great place to refill your emotional tank (and affordably too).
Lamb shanks falling off the bone was just what the doctor ordered after guests had arrived at Resthaven Guest House in Matatiele after a long drive from Gauteng, Plettenberg Bay, Fish Hoek, Stellenbosch, KZN, Cape Town, Krugersdorp, Ramsgate and Pennington. For many this would be their first visit to Lesotho. The Q&A session at the drivers briefing was bubbling with nervous questions.
Day 1 saw the convoy rumbling down the wide main street of Matatiele (which means 'the ducks have flown'). This is the only tour we run with two guides and there's a good reason for that. Philip Rawlins is an acknowledged expert on all matters Lesotho. He knows the back roads, is well connected and generally makes things happen (like not being harrased at road blocks). We have worked hard over the years to temper the combination of two guides with different dispositions, but it works well with a dash of applied EQ.
Ready to rumble at Resthaven / Photo: Elrita Rawlins
The R56 is being completely rebuilt between Kokstad and Matatiele leaving slow traffic in its wake with multiple speed bumps (or as the authorities euphemistically call them traffic calming devices). The frustration amongst those in a hurry (aka taxi drivers and courier vehicles) is evident as some very reckless behaviour is evident on this road, where no overtaking signs are completely ignored. Oh yes - the Lewis Stores delivery bakkies need a special mention too. You need to be wide awake!
Fortunately, we left that jamboree for the relative sanctity of the dodgy gravel road through the wetlands around the Swartberg farming area, which was infinitely more pleasant. There was plenty of birdlife to be seen for those with keen eyes and good binoculars.
Underberg and Himevile passed serenely by with good views of Giants Castle and the Berg waiting to welcome us into its brooding bosom.
The SAPS border post was friendly and efficient and within 10 minutes the entire convoy had been processed. Philip took our passports and went up Sani pass ahead of the group to facilitate our entry into Lesotho, whilst I took the group up at a much slower pace.
Sani Pass is on everyone's bucket list and with good reason too. It has a certain allure - a blend of raw gravel, multiple hairpins, steep gradients, unpredictable weather and an interesting history. Then there's that "I've been to the highest pub in Africa" mental sticker, but we'll dig into that little story in more detail.
The weather was kind, other than a strong and ice cold katabatic wind, hurtling down the Drakensberg, which had guests huddled in the pub for warm drinks and hot meals.
One week after our tour it snowed in Lesotho / Photo: Courtesy of Snow Report
Sani Top Chalets & Pub changed ownership not too long ago. The new owner is a Mosotho lady attorney that lives in Jhb. She has cracked the anti-tourism whip in a misguided attempt at controlling numbers of guests entering the pub. Clearly law and good business practice are not on the same page. She does not want any groups bigger than 12 at a time to be in the pub. Visitors have to do an online booking at R200 per person, which is then redeemable off your lunch/drinks bill.
The pub is akin to a Spur at an airport - a captive market of non-repeat clients.
Her decisions have not sat well with the biking, hiking and 4x4 communities and validly so, as hikers and cyclists don't have ready access to computers or even good wifi to do bookings. Will her business last? That is the question. To be or not to be.
Sani Top / Photo: MPSA
Sani Pass has history; lots of it:
The history of the pass is defined by a rapid evolution from an animal trail to an adventurous 4x4 route:
Early 1900s - A Brutal Pack-Animal Trail: Originally, the route was a treacherous footpath used by the San people and later by Basotho traders and herdsmen. Because it was almost vertical near the top, goods were transported by pack mules, making it a difficult and often deadly journey for the animals.
In the next episode, we will take you with us from Sani Top to Oxbow Lodge over multiple massive passes, including the highest pass in Lesotho, the Mahlasela Pass as well as the crossing of the brand new Senqu Bridge.
Well rested, the two groups arrived at Babes se Winkel where the plans for the day were discussed. The three tyre victims needed to drive through to Willowmore to get their rubber fitted, so we planned our day around that time schedule.
Close to the well-known trading store, is a turnoff marked "Sewefontein". A short drive of about 1.5 km gets one to a large parking area, where we met our local guide - the well known and popular Patrick Ruiters.
Patrick Ruiters - An unmistakable voice / Photo: MPSA
Patrick is a small man, but high in enthusiasm for his comminity and the environment.
"It's not a borehole, ladies and gennelmen" he exhorts: "It's a fountain!"
He is neatly dressed in a clean uniform and soon has his audience warming to his peculiar style of humour, his high pitched voice piercing the still air of the Baviaanskloof.
The fig tree forest is next where the very old ficus trees form a shady canopy of the seven fountains that run through the area.
Hunger calls as we head west to another of our favourite earthy Baviaans experiences - Vero's Restaurant. Vero is a hard working young lady, who together with her family, live in a small home right next to the main gravel road. A few benches and tables have been placed under the trees, decorated with succulents, which are always for sale. The real deal here is ordering fresh 'roosterkoek'. Traffic passes close by, the dust settles and life goes back to farm mode.
Vero's Restaurant - a true blue Baviaans experience / Photo: MPSA
In the east dark thunderheads are forming, the tang of the air changing with the imminent arrival of a thunderstorm and when the rain hits the dusty earth, that heady aroma called petrichor releases all sorts of feel good sensations - the kind that make you want to stand in the rain and sing.
Our goal for the afternoon was two fold. Get our tyre group to Willowmore safely and allow the rest of the group to drive the Nuwekloof Pass; the key to the Baviaanskloof.
It is extraordinary how quickly the weather can change. We drove up the pass in bright, sunny weather and 15 minutes later the rain came bucketing down.
The "terrible tyre trio" (as we later called them) made it to Willowmore without any further mishap, had their tyres fitted and balanced and returned to Sederkloof that night arriving after 20.00 in full darkness.
The rest of the B-Group, who had arranged to have the dinner postponed till the tyre trio returned, had imbibed a considerable amount of alcohol (on empty stomachs) by that time, so when the TTT finally drove up the mountain, the rest of the group all went outside with their phone torches waving in the darkness as a sort of airport ground controlller and apparently there was some song and dance as well. Festive!!!
All these things bond people together. It's good for 'gees' building.
Next Episode: Zandvlakte to Cape St Francis
Piet and Marinette Joubert were marooned at their farm for several days, before a small group of 4x4 enthusiasts in Land Cruisers managed to reach them with supplies. The usual 2 hour drive took the whole day. The road has taken a pounding from that storm in May.
Piet Joubert (obscured, left), his son (right) and three farm workers hard at work getting the road cleared / Photo: Gamkaskloof - Die Hel
In our previous newsletter we published the story and appealed to our followers to assist via their Backabuddy link, but more importantly, Piet needed a TBL machine to fix the road. Well, miracles do happen. The TBL arrived on the back of a truck, offloaded and is currently doing the hard yards, getting the road back into a driveable state.
We will be driving the road in 8 weeks time and will report back.
Our hearts go out the Jouberts. The last 10 years have been especially tough for them. Fires, floods and Covid. It's enough to make a grown man cry. These folk need our collective support.
During our Wild Coast Tours, we always head up to the old WW2 airport via the PSJ Airport Road. Guests really enjoy the informal drag racing on the airstrip where everyone's a winner.
We filmed this pass way back in 2020, but the video is still relevant
PORT ST JOHNS AIRPORT ROAD
Written with passion and a genuine love of all things South African.
How to be mentally strong
Stop explaining yourself to everyone
Accept that which you can't control
Dont chase validation
Master your emotions, don't suppress them
Stay steady when things get uncertain
Detach from unnecessary drama
Choose peace over proving a point
Focus on growth, not perfection
Trust your decisions
Learn from pain, don't live in it
Be comfortable standing alone
Respond with clarity, not with impulse
* Mother Nature Unleashed
* Trips & Tours
* Lesotho V5 Tour (Overview)
* Kouga-Baviaans Tour (Day 2)
* Featured Pass
Listen to an AI-generated discusion of this week's newsletter:
The weeks that whizzed by in a frenzy of media reporting have left me in a state of sensory overload.
Politics, for once took a back seat, as Mother Nature took all the limelight in all her ferocious, untrammelled glory. She can be very cruel sometimes.
On Monday this week the Cape of Storms really lived up to its reputation with a low pressure system at 987 hPa generating wind gusts in excess of 140 kph coupled with close to 300mm of rain. High sided trucks toppled over like toys in various places. Many major roads, including the N1, R46 and R43, Clarence Drive, Chapman's Peak, Franschhoek Pass and others have been closed.
On our return from the Mountain Kingdom Tour, a particularly nasty weather system (the first of two systems) hit South Africa, with the Garden Route, Klein Karoo, Baviaanskloof and Great Karoo being at the epicentre of all the drama. Floods, gale force winds and snow came roaring in from the South Atlantic with a cut-off low fuelling the system.
A very long list of road closures ensued with bridges washed away and the R62 suffering a full width collapse near Kareedouw. Dams filled overnight. The Kouga Dam was just 34% full before the system arrived. Forty eight hours later the dam recorded its highest level in history at 120%. That translates into an inflow of 90 million cubic metres of water in 48 hours.
The result was the Kouga River came down in full flood. The real drama came when the Grootrivier also came down in flood. These two rivers join forces close to the eastern side of the Baviaanskloof near Patensie, where the name changes to the Gamtoos River. It burst its banks causing rapid evacuation of low lying properties. Thousands of acres of citrus orchards have been inundated. The potential losses will be massive.
* The weeks that were
* Trips & Tours
* Kouga-Baviaans Tour (Day 1)
* Katberg Tour (Day 3)
* Technical (Jacks)
* Featured Pass
Listen to an AI-generated discusion of this week's newsletter:
When Covid happened in 2020 I was totally convinced that it was the most significant event of my 76 years on planet earth, but I could just be wrong. Trump has stepped the game up with his peculiar style of leadership - the latest tragi-comedy posting an AI generated image depicting himself as Jesus coming to save the world. This has infuriated the Catholic church and many other religious groups, causing the Orange Man to remove the post. Even Trump faithfuls have expressed outrage.
Meanwhile the rest of us mortals have to contend with the detritus of his actions in the form of rapidly rising fuel costs, which in turn will affect all other prices negatively. We keep holding our breath hoping (naively) for a peaceful resolution and our lives returning to normal.
The past three weeks have been a yo-yo ride of hope and dismay.
We were on the Kouga-Baviaans Tour in Cape St Francis when the proverbial shite hit the Middle East fan as rumours and false news swamped social media. These included vehicles were only allowed 50 litres of fuel and the national speed limit was (supposedly) reduced to 80 kph. Nearly all of it was rubbish - a typical knee jerk reaction and fake news spread by the bulk of our gullible population.
At the time I said it was nothing more than hoarding/profiteering by filling station owners and as soon as the fuel price hike was done, everything would return to normal - and so it (predictably) was. One only has to do the maths. Follow the money (honey)!
Petrol and diesel are readily available all over South Africa and Lesotho. Reboot!
It had been very hot on our day of arrival, making the pool at Assegaaibosch a popular spot. The flow of cold beers from the bar fridge was not keeping up with demand as guests slaked their thirsts and started getting into the slow chill mode of Kareedouw.
* Tours - Opportunities
* Kouga-Baviaans Tour (Overview)
* Katberg Tour (Day 2)
* New Senqu Bridge at Polihali (Lesotho) is completed.
* Tyres (we keep learning hard lessons)
* Featured Pass
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We have a few opportunities to join some of our upcoming tours. Click any of the hyperlinks below to review itineraries and pricing:
That's what I said when the 7th shredded tyre was called in over the VHF radio during our recent Kouga-Baviaans Tour. Our previous "record" (for want of a better word) was 5 during one of our Wild Coast Tours, but this Baviaans trip was on another level altogether.
When the dust settled and the wallets emptied, it was time to take stock and do some thinking. The common denominator was that all the punctures (these weren't just punctures - they were sidewall cuts, resulting in a total loss scenario) ocurred on rim sizes between 18 and 22 inches, shod with 2 ply tyres. Vehicles afffected were a Land Cruiser 300 GR, both Land Rover Defender 300 series, Ford Wildtrak, VW Amarok (2 tyres) and a VW T4 M/Bus.
* Tours
* Katberg Tour (Day 1)
* Alan Weyer
* Ben 10 (Day 5)
* Technical Corner
* Benholm Pass
* Featured Pass
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March 15th to 20th - Kouga Baviaans Tour (Fully Booked). We depart this Saturday to meet our tour guests at the Assegaaibosch Lodge in Kareedouw. This will be the first group to drive our new experimental route throught Nooitgedacht, Melmont Honeybush Tea farm and Bernardshoek.
We are working on the October and November tours. These will go live towards the end of March.
Comms checks were done and soon we were on our way heading over Hogsback's infamous potholed main road. Mercifully we turned off soon onto Wolf Ridge Road, heading towards Keiskammahoek via the Wolf River Pass, immediately immersed into the quietness of the forests.
This long pass offers a huge variety of scenery, ranging from dense indigenous forests, to plantations, waterfalls, open grassland, deep valleys, rural villages and hundreds of bends. It ends at the Sandile Dam.
The dam is located at the confluence of the Keiskamma and Wolf rivers at Ezingcuka near Keiskammahoek. It was established in 1983 and serves mainly for irrigation purposes. The dam is a 58 m. high, 31 million cu.m capacity, zoned embankment dam completed in 1983.
* Tours Updates
* Katberg Tour Overview
* Storms River Pass (Filmed at last)
* Technical Corner (The Sand Monster)
* Ben 10 - Day 4 (Not all heroes wear capes)
* Featured Pass
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All our tours are fully booked up till the end of July. We are only able to put you on a cancellation list. Email us at
Overview: We set a number of new records for this tour and had to overcome a number of issues, but we also made some great new connections and improvements.
The 5 day/6 night event took place from the 15th - 20th February and included a wide variety of interesting places, which we will delve into more detail in the next issue of this newsletter.
* Tours Update
* Ben 10 - Day 3
* Tyre Deflation - Why, when and what.
* New Videos
* Featured Pass
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In a week's time we depart for Hogsback for the start of our 3rd Amathole~Katberg Tour. It's all systems go as the first tour of year is set to deliver new adventures, adrenaline and camaraderie. Forecasts for the area are typically summer conditions with a mix of warm, humid weather interspered with thunderstorms and rain. Let's hope some of that rain heads westwards to PE, Knysna, George, Riversdale and Cape Town.
All tours up till the end of July are fully booked, with the exception of two spots still available on the Great Karoo Tour in June. Cederberg Spring Tour, Seven Sisters and the Ben 10 will be uploaded soon.
Book here: GREAT KAROO TOUR
With Jouberts Pass and Bastervoetpad concluded and another eight passes to go, we set the third day up to complete two challenge passes. It would turn into quite a long day, thanks to a flash flood in the Tsomo River Valley.
We had used our good weather window for Bastervoetpad the previous day. For the rest of the week the forecast showed rain daily. It would be a tour which we nicknamed "Dodge the storms" for the multiple times that we had to amend the routes around the weather systems.
We departed Mountain Shadows Hotel right on schedule, heading back to Barkly East and on towards Lady Grey, but we turned south onto the R392 just before Benjaminshoogte, taking the lovely gravel route south.
Roadworks were taking place, involving a few delays as we ducked around road graders, compactors and tipper trucks. We never complain as seeing the EC Government maintaining roads is a very heartening sight.
Hope springs eternal.
* Looking back (over my shoulder)
* Trips & Tours
* Floods, Droughts, Fires and Disease
* Ben 10 Official (Day 2)
* Technical Tips
* Featured Pass
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Well, well, well - 2025 was a very good year for MPSA for a host of reasons - too many to write about here, but various innovations helped to increase our subscriber base, our social media following and positive growth in tours bookings. We are looking forward to the new year and the various challenges we are likely to face.
We wish every one of you a healthy and happy 2026.
Floods in the more northern parts of South Africa and especially in the Lowveld have affected road closures and infrastructure damage. The Kruger National Park has been adversely affected. The cost of the flooding has not yet been fully determined.
Droughts are evident in several areas, with the town of Knysna in the news again as only having 4% water reserves left at the time of writing.
Wildfires started early in December affecting many parts of the Western Cape. The news came in on 22nd December of an SUV towing a camping trailer that caught fire at the summit of the Uitkyk Pass in the Cederberg. The veld started burning immediately in the hot summer weather and consumed 53,000 hectares of pristine wilderness. The veld will recover and re-germinate after a season of winter rain, but spare a thought for the farmers and holiday makers who lost revenue and infratucture in the blazes that followed, which burned for several days, only being being extinguised on January 2nd.
* Compliments of the season
* Trips & Tours
* Hendrik & Annick from the duck shop
* Ben 10 Official - Day 1
* Featured Pass
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We will be taking a short break from today until early January.
Wishing you a joyful and peaceful Christmas from all of us at Mountain Passes South Africa. As the year draws to a close, we want to thank you for being part of our community and for sharing a passion for the remarkable landscapes, winding roads, and unforgettable mountain passes that make our country so special. May this festive season bring you rest, adventure, and time well spent with those who matter most, and may the year ahead be filled with safe travels, new discoveries, and many memorable journeys.
A quick recap on the year shows 8 tours completed. All of them fully booked. The new tour (Cederberg) we introduced was very well received and booked out quickly, to the point that we are already steaming ahead with pre tour bookings for the 2026 version.
From the social media side (Facebook) we gained roughly 30,000 new followers for 2025. Today's tally is 233,000 followers generating over 36 million post views for the year. Facebook continues to serve our style of story-telling particularly well.
Instagram is still a platform for busy people who don't like reading much. We are up 4,000 new followers to end the year on 35,000 followers.
On the back burner is the controversial Tik-Tok platform, where we have been operating for about 6 months and gained 3,800 followers, with results that read like a bizarre weather report of extreme highs and lows in terms of post views. I have yet to figure out the algorithm. We will make a decision whether to remain on Tik Tok platform in 2026.
We have wrapped up the last tour of the year with a sizzling Ben 10 Eco Challenge.
2026
JANUARY - No Tours
FEBRUARY - Amathole-Katberg Tour ( 2 spots open)
MARCH - Kouga-Baviaans Tour (Fully booked)
APRIL - Mountain Kingdom Tour Lesotho (Fully booked)
MAY - Wild Coast Tour (Fully booked)
JUNE - Great Karoo Tour (7 spots open)
JULY - Swartberg Classic Tour (6 spots open)
AUGUST - No Tours
SEPTEMBER: Cederberg Spring Tour (Bookings not open yet)
OCTOBER - Seven Sisters Tour (Bookings not open yet)
NOVEMBER - Ben 10 Official (Bookings not open yet)
DECEMBER - No Tours
If you want to reserve a place on one of the tours where bookings have not yet opened, we can offer you a priority reservation without payment required. Just send us an email request to
* Tours Updates
* Ben 10 Official
* Pat McAfee Show
* Wedding Bells
* Featured Pass
Listen to an AI-generated discusion of this week's newsletter:
Most of the tours are fully booked for the first half of 2026, but we still have a few places left for the Katberg Tour (15 - 20 Feb) and the Great Karoo Tour (20 - 27 June). Bookings for the ever popular Swartberg Tour (24-30 July) will open within the next week.
AMATHOLE-KATBERG TOUR.
I've said these words before. "Our best Ben 10 Ever" and yet thinking back on all the other Ben 10 tours, each one had it's own allure and amazing moments. This one, our 11th version was as close to perfection as what we could expect. Our group lost two tyres to sidewall cuts and we performed only one recovery. We dodged rotor storms and weather systems; rearranged routes to suit the prevailing weather; adapted our time schedules and somehow managed to complete the challenge successfully.
But let's start right at the beginning with some pilot induced error. About a year ago I made the decision to switch Thirsty Kirsty's headlights from the yellowish lights it originally came out with, to more modern LED globes. They cost at least double the price of the old ones, but here's the rub. They have given me ongoing problems, with the fittings rattling loose, LED's fusing and so on. The suppliers have replaced each set under warranty (to their credit). The LED's are made in Europe, so these are top end lights, designed to last. Let me also point out that the original globes had been in the vehicle since 2003 till 2025 (23 years) operating continuously without ever having to replace the globes.Everything keeps going right....
That little preamble brings me to the next part of the story. On the drive up to the Ben 10, we stopped in Robertson for breakfast and I noticed that the RF headlight was dead. On closer inspection, peering between batteries, radiators and pipes, I found that the LED globe was lying on a metal plate under the leisure battery and had detatched itself from its connector. So I made the mistake of trying to retrieve it and refit it. The only way was to uncouple the leisure battery, remove it, retrieve the globe, refit it and put it all back together.
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