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sudwala caves

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.

 The Sudwalaskraal Pass is to all intents and purposes a southern extension of the slightly longer Sudwala Pass on the same road (R359) and together form one long pass of 16 km. At 7,4 km the Sudwalaskraal Pass is well above the national average and displays a substantial altitude variance of 285m. The pass is named after the Sudwalaskraal farm near the foot of the pass. The road was in good condition at the time of filming and has nicely radiused corners and well engineered gradients never exceeding 1:11.

The famous Sudwala Caves lie near the southern foot of the pass and offer visitors a glimpse into the dark and distant past of Africa millions of years ago. The pass contains 17 bends, corners and curves of which two are U bends exceeding an angle of 130 degrees. The usual Mpumalanga pass cautionaries apply of heavy mountain mists and slow moving logging and mining trucks.