If you’re into wild and rugged roads on mountain passes or coastal drives, into weather that can change from mist belts to sunshine in the twinkling of an eye, and having the whole world to yourself for a few hours, then the Caracal 4×4 Eco Route is your kind of thing.
The best feature of this trail in the Namaqua National Park is that it allows you to enjoy a wide range of habitats, from mountains to coast. Relax, it isn’t Fear Factor and Survivor rolled into one so there’s no need to get your knickers in a twist, especially if you tackle it in the dry season (rainy season is June to August). In fact, it’s classed as “˜easy to moderate’ although there are some steep dongas and a few seriously sandy sections along the coast where you’d be stumped without a decent 4×4 in low range.
The trail is between 176 and 200 kilometres long, depending on which tracks you choose, but time is a better benchmark. It will take six to eight hours to complete. If that’s too much, you can opt to do a shorter section only.
Before you launch into doing the whole caboodle, you need to know it’s not a circular trail. So if you start from your Skilpad Rest Camp chalet and are sleeping there again that night, you’d better leave at first light because once you’ve done your eight hours on the trail, you’ll still have another two-hour drive back from the Groen River end point. It makes sense to avoid this by sleeping over at Hondeklipbaai, or booking a night at the rustic Luiperdskloof Cottage in the mountains before the coastal section of the eco-route and making a two-day trip of it.
We started our journey with a drive down the steep Soebatsfontein Pass. Magnificent vistas opened out over rocky koppies, and we got to see springbok, red hartebeest, steenbok and klipspringer. At the abandoned settlement of Koeroebees, crossing the Swartlintjies River was easy-peezy because it was just a patch of sand. But don’t be fooled; these rivers can sometimes be impassable in the wet season. If you try to be clever you might end up as a back-page “˜Mugs in their 4x4s’ pin-up in a magazine when things go belly up.
From the pass the route turns north, taking you into the Kamiesberg hills for yet more vistas and plants, not to mention volcanic rock faces and giant boulders. You can go up the Wildeperdehoek Pass, built in the late 1800s to transport copper ore from Springbok to Hondeklipbaai, or you can take the shorter route to Riethuis where there are some rare succulents.
Through grassy plains and dune areas with dry fynbos, you’ll finally get to the coastal section of the park south of Hondeklipbaai. This coastal village was once a port for copper ore brought by ox-wagon from Springbok and later a crayfish factory until Port Nolloth took over as the port of choice, but both these activities faded into memory long ago. Its attractions include the wreck of the Aristea (a fishing trawler that survived WWII but ran aground in 1945 thanks to a tipsy captain, or so the story goes) and some stunning beaches south of the town. There’s also an old cemetery for those who find such things more interesting than creepy.
Further south is the Spoegrivier estuary, where you’re in for some good birding (especially waders). The Spoegrivier caves are a historical and cultural landmark because their almost two-metre deep archaeological deposits have coughed up signs of sheep farming some 2100 years ago. Relatively untouched by human activity but with an intertidal zone packed with mussels, limpets and rock lobsters, the 50-kilometre stretch of Groen-Spoeg coastline was incorporated into the Namaqua National Park in 2008.
Eventually the eco route spits you out at the Groen River mouth, where there’s a lighthouse and one of the saltiest estuaries in South Africa, where you might see pelicans and flamingos.
I defy you not to be impressed.
Click here for more interesting things to do in and around Namaqua National Park.
Going to Namaqua? Find accommodation here
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