Content tagged:
n4

The beautiful Elands Pass will always be remembered once driven. It has an abundance of scenic beauty, with waterfalls, a railway line looping under the road, history in abundance and a beautifully engineered tar road to make for a comfortable drive. Perhaps the only detraction is that the N4 is a very busy road with lots of heavy-duty commercial traffic. The pass connects Machadodorp (eNtokozweni) in the west (8km) with Nelspruit in the east (85 km). The historic town of Waterval-Boven (Emgwenya)lies at the western end of the pass. The pass is 9,4 km long and gains 198m in altitude producing a gentle average gradient of 1:47 with the steepest parts near the tunnel being at 1:12

This beautifully scenic, but busy road is a 13 km gateway from the Lowveld to the Kruger National Park and follows the course of the Crocodile River. The gradients are very easy and even cyclists will have no issues with the pitch. It is however, a road that carries heavy traffic, so a leisurely drive through the poort enjoying the scenery is not a likely scenario. The poort plays host to the road, the railway line and the river within it's fairly narrow confines. The road, labelled as the N4, connects Nelspruit with Malelane and Komatipoort.

The N4 is a national highway that stretches across the entire northern section of South Africa, from the Botswana border in the west, through Pretoria, to the Mozambique border in the east. Astonishingly, there are only four official passes on this road, and Magatasnek is the only one located on the western half. The pass lies just to the west of Rustenburg.

The N4 is heavily tolled, and has a reputation as a dangerous road, in particular the section between Brits and Rustenburg, where there is only a single lane in each direction for much of this route. Impatient motorists tend to overtake slow moving traffic without any regard for the road markings and signs, resulting in a number of injuries and fatalities.

The Montrose Pass is a short tarred pass on the N4 approximately midway beween Ngodwana and Nelspruit. The highlight of the pass is a stop at the Montrose Falls where there is a small hotel and where you can see the Crocodile River plunging over a solid rock sill. The pass only rises 61m over a distance of 3,74 km producing an average gradient of an easy 1:61, but there are steeper sections at 1:10 just before and after the summit.