Overlanding and Golf - Not the Garden Route, South Africa

Travelling around Africa in a 4x4 has its advantages, being able to experience some of the African massage roads, whether by choice or necessity, its not the most pleasant of rides, but having Andi the Landy as our home, we can tackle some spectacular routes, across and through mountains that some regular cars might struggle with.

OK we’re not going at speed, although slightly faster downhill!  But our lack of speed gives us extra time to enjoy our journey instead of it being an A to B mad dash necessity.

Turning right at George we make our way up to Oudsthoorn, home of the Ostrich - everything Ostrich, even Ostrich themselves.  This is not our first time in this area, but this time we wanted to share it with you.  Plenty of shops sell all things Ostrich from the Scrimshaw style huge eggs, made into lights or bird feeders, to the Ostrich hide, slightly bobbled (where the feathers were) and dyed in so many different colours - 8 years ago I bought a small bag, and still use it to this day, such is the quality of the hide, similar to leather.  Sure enough there is some tacky stuff in the shops, things to attract the tourist, but there is also some nice stuff too, so spend a bit of time just browsing. 

We played Oudsthoorn golf club, devoid of golfers, this dark but cool clubhouse greeted us, and finally got what we were doing enough to let us include it as our 30th golf course of our Africa 100 challenge.

It was an incredibly hot afternoon, with little breeze, but set off we did down number one, just slightly dripping.  The first thing that struck us was the greens, fairly large and in good condition, and they were green as opposed to brown.  A little tufty due to their length, it is understandable why they were left bit long, otherwise they’d burn and brown off.  Despite their length, they did roll well and true.  Lots of mini mountain ranges dotted around the course, moles or something similar were the culprits and are obviously a
problem as they produced their conical mounds almost as we watched.  Some lovely big trees giving us some much needed shade.  Sadly the downside to trees, is they were always seemed to be in the way, whether it was the leaves or the trunk, they got us every which way.

Playing from just two tees, white and red, it was really nice to see others playing the course too.  Hole 12, par 3 measuring just 122/150 meters taunted us with water in front, and what looked like desert scrub behind.  With palm trees on the right, gave it a tropical feel.  Safely on the green, we both made par.  Hitting the ball off the tee at hole 13, were jumped in the golf cart and started down the fairway, to a grey/brown unusual mound.  Bearing in mind the course is on the African red soil, we couldn’t quite make out the mound, until we got closer and saw a huge tortoise, sadly with a couple of holes in his shell - golf ball shaped holes.  Mountain views in the distance, you’re reminded how far into the mountains you’ve come away from the ever popular Garden Route.  The mole hills foreground and the mountains background made an interesting comparison.

Sadly there was a lot of rubbish littering the course, but as we didn’t see any bins, maybe that’s why - that and dropping rubbish seems to be the norm in most African places. 

Another thing to feast your eyes upon were the paper trees, giant pale trees with strips of bark paper thin rolling into curls before fluttering down to the ground.

Camping in a popular and family busy but well appointed campsite just on the outskirts of Oudsthoorn was great too as we got to meet some local South African campers - yep, they all thought we were mad!  It only cost us £21 for the night, and with decent ablutions and a pool, it was worth it.

Not wanting to rush away, we gradually packed away and set off to the Cango Caves.  One of those rare phenomenon  where wearing shorts and shirt is still fine, despite it being caves, why?  These caves have developed into a hill side,  as opposed to dropping miles into the earth, as such they remain a constant 20 degrees.  A large party set off before thankfully being split up into two smaller (but still too big) groups and guided through chambers of stunning rock formations.  Like dripping candles
the rocks tell the story of yesteryear. 

Then we were off to do something we didn’t get chance to do last time we were in the area, and one of the reasons we have a car like Andi the Landy.  Eight years ago, this pass was closed due to a landslide, and when we did get to go up its steep and narrow roads, you could see how that might happen - wishing it wasn’t going to happen on the day we drove the pass.

Swartberg Pass, this intense road zig zagging upwards to its ultimate height of 1575 meters above sea level and is 24km long.  The views are simply spectacular as we gently trundled uphill to the summit.  So long as no other cars passed you’d be fine.  The general rule in downhillers give way to uphillers, but sadly not everyone got that memo, and some absolutely crazy drivers hogged the road.  One orange jeep as he travelled at great speed uphill didn’t give us chance to pull over before swishing past us teetering on the edge of the cliff side - his side.  Another know it all driver, decide to overtake us on a bend, without realising we’d pulled in to allow an uphill  vehicle to pass us.  A couple fo near accidents, just on our watch, but we finally got to drive along the Swartberg Pass - a big tick in our books and definitely worth doing, albeit a bit hairy at times.

Surprisingly colourful - not just the air as those guys decided to drive as they wish, but out the window, it
wasn’t a constant brown and colourless, as you might expect, but slithers of green intersperse and break up the baron browns and grey rocks, highly colourful planting along the route was nice to see too.  The way up was steep and with hairpin bends, the way down was a little more gentle with long sweeps before turning gently into Prince Albert. 

We tried to get into the hotel we loved so much those years ago, but they were under new ownership, so we found a nice spot to camp right next to the Olive Oil factory,  Prince Albert is known for good Olive Oil, so we bought some and it is good.  The campsite itself was small with OK ablutions, slightly dated, but we were only there for one night, so it didn’t matter.  Prince Albert itself is a one horse town, one long wide road with a wonderful array of colonial buildings.  We popped into a local market and had a nice look around.

Making our way to the next stop, Robertson, and into wine country, we passed through tunnels blasted out of the rock faces, along a really pleasant road capturing the imagination of how on earth does that even survive out here!  Beautiful trumpet flowers, erect and commanding a space were special and clearly thriving in this harsh hot environment.

A quick overnight in Robertson and dinner at the Four Cousins restaurant meant buying
some wine, a nice crisp rose, not too sweet, but edging towards the dry side, and we slept like babies that night.

Dropping down towards Cape Town, we  booked in to play Steenberg Golf Club.  Another Peter Matkovich design in partnership with Hayes with the ever present Table Mountain as its backdrop. The breeze didn’t little to alleviate the heat.  At only 30 years old, the course is settled but was undergoing a transformation when we visited, not for its design so much, more the greens were being relaid to a more sustainable grass, one that needs less water, a sensible consideration in this part of the world.  William, our starter was pleased to announce that Steenberg is the best course in Cape Town, so this we had to see.

Unusually, before we started playing, we visited the driving range and the practice putting green.
  Steve doesn’t like to practice as he says it wastes his good shots, but we couldn’t resist the range with its wonderful backdrop akin to Royal Bled in Slovenia.

The first takes you around and the second past the driving range, then hole 3 gives us other delights to feast not only our eyes, but maybe our bellies too.  Grape vines laden with large juicy green grapes - probably not eating ones, more for the wine production this area is best known for.  Huge grapes ripening in the sunshine clustered in ripening bunches made for a pleasing sight in this rich fertile land, not taking over but complimentary to the golf courses as they snuggling together in harmony.  There is an air of ‘busy’ about the course with traffic noice evident for some of the holes, some of the houses sat so close to the course there is barely any garden, but they were low level, so didn’t obstruct the long views, plus the volume of golfing traffic the course consumes  with ease in one day - but its a pretty well thought out course too.  The off white bunkers setting off the greenery perfectly.

Hole 5 brings in some water, which is interspersed with bunkers making it a snaking hole which culminates in the putting green being in front of the vin yards once again and Table Mountain overlooking in the background.

In general the greens are quite big, some have water around them some bunkers, and some have both!  A rocky brook traverses alongside the left of hole 8 before it swiftly dissects the fairway.  There is evidence of the course being played but not necessarily overplayed, but the greenskeepers have a constant job to maintain it to the high standard it is, I’m sure.

We didn’t stop half way round, and inadvertently jumped 2 groups ahead, but the play was slow on the day we played; more time to enjoy the scenery and appreciate the design, we thought. 

Hole 12 has an Alpine feel about it with a huge waste bunker running the length of the left of the fairway.   Despite all this a good choice of play was the chip and run, which seemed to work well on this course.

We thought the back nine was prettier and more spaced out with mountain views and stony brooks, with or without water.  Even the bunkers which seemed to loom large on the front nine, paled into insignificance on the back nine - or maybe we were just getting better at avoiding them?

Stephen won this game taking our overall score to Steve 15, Sarah 16