suburban passes

All Saints Neck is located on the outskirts of Engcobo (also sometimes spelled as Ngcobo), a small town in the Eastern Cape between Queenstown and Mthatha on the R61. The pass is named after the All Saints mission station, which was founded in 1860 and which is located to the north of the pass, about 8 km from the town. The road has been refurbished and upgraded and is in an excellent condition, but as always in the Eastern Cape, care must be exercised when driving this pass due to the abundance of traffic, pedestrians and animals in the roadway.

A small little suburban pass just to the north-east of Pretoria along the northern side and parallel to the Magaliesberg range. This pass called Baviaanspoort (Poort of Baboons) should not be confused with it's more famous namesake in the Eastern Cape - Baviaanskloof. The pass is only 1,7 km long and rises or descends a total of only 48 vertical metres producing an easy average gradient of 1:35.

Another scenic suburban pass near Cape Town that connects the Peninsula villages of Sun Valley and Noordhoek with Simonstown via a wide, safe and modern road, better known as the Glencairn Expressway which carries the M6 route tag. The 5,39 km long road descends 139 vertical metres, producing an average gradient of 1:39 with the steepest sections being at 1:14. The road is popular with cyclists as a hill training route and offers wide safety shoulders. Simonstown is the most southerly town on the Cape Peninsula and boasts a host of scenic attractions.

Take a fabulously scenic drive along the mountain side above Muizenberg and Kalk Bay Bay along the north-western corner of False Bay  and take in the elevated views of the coastline with its rocky shores, tiny fishing harbours and blue waters stretching away towards Gordon's Bay and Cape Hangklip. This 7 km long mountain road offers an alternative route to the more congested Main Road along the seafront and provides some excellent view-sites as well as access to some wonderful hikes up to the Silvermine Nature Reserve. This road falls under the category of 'Suburban Passes'

Camps Bay Drive is a tricky road, where your attention will be devided between the amazing views of mountain and sea juxtaposed against trying to get your vehicle around the many dangerous corners on this road. Many of these have negative cross-flow, which is bad news for speed and maybe this is a good thing, as this is a busy road carrying heavy traffic. It is a road that has developed over a period of 200 years, with the upper quarter being a modern four lane road, but the bottom three quarters is narrow, bumpy and very twisty. The road descends from Kloof nek at 234m ASL all the way down to the coast at 11m ASL, producing an average gradient of 1:18, but some of the sections are as steep as 1:7

Coney Glen Road is a short, scenic suburban pass located on East Head at Knysna Heads. The road is narrow and attracts tourist traffic as well as local traffic. The 12 bends are almost all very sharp, so a speed of lower than 40 kph is appropriate. There is a well managed view site about halfway up the pass but you need to park and walk 50m or so to access the view site which offers sweeping views of the heads and the lagoon.

Once the southern descent commences the road is brick paved and also quite steep. The many speed bumps and water channels ensure a low speed is maintained. The pass ends at the parking area servicing the Coney Glen beach. The popular restaurant East Head Cafe requires booking if you want to get a table and is very popular with tourists and locals alike.

This fairly long suburban pass links Hout Bay in the west with Constantia on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula. It traverses some of the most beautiful woodlands in the Cape and passes many exclusive wine and equine estates. It is smack-bang on the main tourist route and carries heavy traffic. There are no safety shoulders on the road, making it dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians. At the summit at Constantia Nek there are some historical buildings and a timeless restaurant considered to be the oldest restaurant in South Africa.

Kloof Nek Road falls under the category of a suburban pass and Cape Town has no shortage of those! The road is steep and dangerous and has something of a reputation for fatal accidents. It connects the city centre with Camps Bay through the obvious neck between Table Mountain and Lions Head. It was built in 1848 when Kloof Nek was used primarily as a look-out post for soldiers and the road was used as a supply route to Camps Bay.

Mpate Heights is a minor tarred pass located on the R68, a shortcut road between the N11 and Dundee in northern KwaZulu-Natal, on the western side of the town. It is named after the mountain which dominates the skyline on its northern side, today called “Mpate”, although earlier maps and transcripts always spelled the name as “Mpati” or sometimes even as “Impati”, which translates as “the place of good waters”. There is only one shallow corner on the pass, which is 2.6 km long and which changes altitude by 139 metres. The road is in a good condition and can be traversed in any vehicle.

This short suburban pass dates back to Johannesburg's early pioneering gold rush days and is one of only a handful of official passes in South Africa that are shorter than 1 km. Within that 900m of distance you will experience gradients as steep as 1:7, a full hairpin pin and many very old dressed stone walls on either side of the road. It connects Upper Houghton with Houghton. The low, rocky ridge that separates downtown Johannesburg from the northern suburbs is called Linksfield Ridge and this little pass is one of three that were first built to give residents of a rapidly expanding city, access to new places to live to the north. The other two are Stewarts Drive and Sylvia's Pass. The ridges cutting through Yeoville and Observatory/Linksfield are a natural barrier between the northern and southern areas of Johannesburg. These ridges were first populated in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

This is a semi-suburban old road demarcated on the government maps as an official pass. It is a straight forward fairly easy descent down a road which is a mix of gravel and tar and heads east towards Great Brak River and ends at a T-junction few kilometers later in the village.

Steepways Lane is a short suburban pass on "The Ridge" in Johannesburg. Despite a miniscule elevation variance of  just 16m and just over one minute to drive it, the little pass resembles the real thing with tight hairpins and steep gradients that reach 1:6. It connects The Ridge Road in the south with Kallenbach Drive in the north.

On the southerly side and over the ridge are the areas of Cyrildene, Observatory and Morninghill, but these suburbs are not visible to Linksfield as they are hidden behind the Linksfield Ridge. The suburb is located on part of an old Witwatersrand farm called Doornfontein.

In 1910, the area was known as Muller's Plantation and it was many years later and after several attempts, before the land was successfully surveyed. It would be proclaimed as suburb on 8 March 1922 and its name is derived from the word Links and its closeness to the nearby Royal Johannesburg & Kensington Golf Club. The suburb was developed by Mr. A.M. Kennedy and Hermann Kallenbach. Kallenbach would build a house on Linksfield Ridge in 1929. The Huddlepark Golf Course and Driving Range borders with Linksfield and Linksfield North.

This short suburban pass is one of three that connects the Johannesburg CBD with the suburbs to the north, over the low rocky ridge that runs along the east-west axis. Stewart Drive connects the suburbs of Yeoville and Bellevue East with Bertrams and Judith's Paarl. Those older suburbs of Johannesburg have experienced a great surge of urban decay and today are considered dangerous, high-crime areas. Stewart Drive itself has earned the nickname of 'Snake Way' because of the high levels of muggings, attacks and even murders, that take place in the bushes along this little pass. Walking alone here can be life threatening. The nickname of 'Snake Way' is more likely due the serpentine like shape of the road. Either way, the nickname is appropriate.

The low, rocky ridge that separates downtown Johannesburg from the northern suburbs is called Linksfield Ridge. One of the roads that connects these two areas is called Sylvia's Pass. It is on record as being the shortest official pass in South Africa, but is nontheless quite steep along most of its length. The road forms part of the M33 suburban route and conencts the Observatory area with Orange Grove. Many locals prefer this route to the more congested Louis Botha Avenue.

Sandwiched between the Krugersdorp Game Reserve in the west and the Blougat Municipal Nature Reserve in the east,  is a well known road commonly referred to as the Krugersdorp Hill Climb for its use as a hill climb race track, but officially it's called the Thomas Jackson Road.

It consists of several very tight hairpin bends and decends from the northern end of the Delporton industrial business park down to the Percy Stewart waste water treatment works, losing 76m of altitude in just 1,2 km, resulting in a stiff average gradient of 1:16.

The Krugersdorp Aerodrome is located close to the summit of the road. It's also called the Jack Taylor Airfield and Delportonia Airfield.

This attractive and well-known little pass is situated in the heart of the leafy northern suburbs of Pretoria, appearing as a welcome surprise to those not familiar with the area. The pass is very steep at an average gradient of 1:8, causing some vehicles to labour heavily as they make their way up the pass in the rarefied Highveld air. This is also true for the runners which take part in the Tom Jenkins Challenge, an annual event which features the pass and which finishes at the nearby Union Buildings.