South Africa Part 4. The Garden Route

This is the fourth and final part detailing a three week cycling tour around South Africa in March 2026. Here are the links to Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.

From the Old Mill Lodge, north of Oudtshoorn, we had two route options. The longer option was to follow a mixture of dirt and paved roads to De Rust, then on to Uniondale and over the pass to Knysna. From Knysna we would follow Seven Passes Road back to George. This looked like a great route, but we decided against it due to unfavourable winds, some road closures and increasing holiday traffic around the coast. You can see the GPS for this route option on this link

Instead, we chose to do a loop on gravel roads around Oudtshoorn, then cross the Outenqiua Mountains on Robinson Pass. We considered continuing down to Mossel Bay, but due to the increasing holiday traffic and need to ride longer stretches on busy roads, we instead booked a night at Eight Bells Resort, from where we would head east on quieter gravel roads towards George on the following day. Our trip would end with three nights in George, where we planned to do a hike and explore some of the mountain bike trails which extended towards Wilderness.

Oudtshoorn & Robinson Pass

Our day began heading south, running parallel to the R328 as far as Buffelsdrift Game Lodge. Here we headed east on a beautiful gravel road, which turned out to be one of the most enjoyable riding sections of the trip. The surface was very good and the road was hilly enough to be interesting, without being overly challenging.

There were game reserves on both sides of the road. I saw a giraffe and several kinds of antelope one one side. The fence on the other side had signs at regular intervals warning that they were lions lurking behind. I didn't see any, but was a little apprehensive that the rather weak looking eight foot high fence, would not have proved much of a barrier to a hungry feline.

Shortly before arriving at the junction with the 12 road, we took a scenic backroad through farms, which cut off a corner. We then had to ride a few kilometres on the 12, but it had a wide shoulder so felt pretty safe.

A series of fun farm tracks took us through the fertile Olifant River valley to the edge of Oudtshoorn, where we stopped for supplies in the supermarket. Our day finished riding through ostrich farms to our accommodation at De Zeekoe. This was another superb rural lodge, with fantastic rooms and an incredible breakfast. We found these lodges outside Oudtshoorn to be more charming and enjoyable than staying in the town itself.





The following day was very hot, with temperatures in excess of 35°C (95°F). Fortunately, we had a relatively short ride, with the only significant obstacle being the climb over Robinson Pass. This was a long ascent, but had mostly gentle gradients and was nearly all on paved roads, so wouldn't prove to be very challenging at all.

The first 20km from De Zeekoe until joining the R328 were the most enjoyable. We followed mostly paved backroads through villages and townships, such as Volmoed, where we were greeted by friendly children and farm workers. This section was undulating and picturesque as the Outeniqua mountains loomed into view.

Our subsequent climb to Robinson Pass on the R328 was not particularly enjoyable. It was scenic in places, but the traffic was a problem. It wasn't an extremely busy road, but as we often experienced in South Africa, cars drove very quickly and didn't leave much space when overtaking. After several close passes by big cars going well over 100km/h (60mph), with no hint of slowing down, we moved into the rough gravel shoulder whenever we heard a car coming.

This shoulder disappeared towards the top of the climb, but the hairpin bends had slowed the cars somewhat, so it didn't feel so dangerous. Similar to the Outeniqua Pass earlier in the trip, the Robinson Pass was a decent climb and pretty scenic, but it lacked the charm and character of the extremely quiet dirt roads we had been riding on the rest of the trip.




The descent of the Robinson Pass was very fast on a perfect paved road. The scenery changed dramatically from the dry semi-desert of the Klein Karoo to the vibrant green hills of the Garden Route.

Before long we had arrived at our accommdation - Eight Bells Mountain Inn. This was a fancier hotel than we are used to staying at, with huge grounds, tennis and squash courts and multiple good restaurants.

Since we had arrived early, we followed one of the hiking trails through nearby forests. We ended up walking quite far, since the signs sent us around in circles at one point. It was a fun little walk where we saw plenty of baboons, as well as a lot of horses which the hotel offers for riding.

I would recommend staying here as a nice place to relax and break up the route, since the following day to George is tougher than in looks! Another option would be to continue down to the coast at Mossel Bay, but it's not that easy to access by bicycle on quiet roads.

George & Wilderness

The ride from Eight Bells to George was a pleasant surprise. We had kind of expected it to be a bit of a transition day, to get back to our starting point, however it was really spectacular riding.

The gravel trails in the first half of the ride were mostly smooth with some short, sharp climbs. And we were rewarded with some stunning views of the Outeniqua mountains to the north and glimpses of the Indian Ocean to the south.

Some roads in the region were closed following an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. This is a big cattle farming region, so they treat it very seriously and we were required to disinfect our tyres at a couple of checkpoints. The closures didn't impact our route much though, only leading to a couple of short diversions.

One of the diversions turned out to be the highlight of the ride, taking us through the town of Friemersheim. The climb to get there was insanely beautiful, and the town itself was probably the most picturesque and vibrant I have seen in South Africa. Many of the houses had skillfully painted murals, mostly with animals themes, and friendly locals waved and offered encouragement as we cycled past. I would highly recommend visiting Friemersheim for the murals - some of which you can see on the Mossel Bay Tourist Board website.





From Friemersheim it is best to descent to Great Brak River to avoid the very heavily corrugated dirt roads further north. This area is home to many dairy farms, and the huge milk trucks have caused severe rutting, making for uncomfortable riding.

The roads are still a bit corrugated and sandy climbing up from Great Brak River, but your bones will get less shaken! On arriving in George, we stopped for a delicious pizza at Outeniqua Brewing. Pizzas in general didn't look too appetising in South Africa, but this one had a superb crust, and was accompanied by delicious ales, freshly brewed on the premises.

A short ride took us to our guest house - one of many on the centrally located Caledon Street, where we would stay for three nights.





The following day in George we hiked around the botanical garden, which was nice and relaxing (particularly the mushroom trails), but not something that I would highly recommend. On our final day we set off on our bikes (without panniers!) to explore some of the mountain bike trails between George and Wilderness.

I have included the circular ride on the map above, which follows mostly gravel roads and double track, with a few short and fun sections of single track. There are plenty more single track trails that you can explore, to the north of George. These are signed with rather curious route names such as Chernobyl and Fukushina.

Highlights of the route included riding on excellent trails through Witfontein forest and the single track around the Pepsi Pools and the University. We were unable to ride the full route to Wilderness as the Seven Passes Road was closed for maintenance. This was disappointing as I had heard good things about the scenery around Wilderness, and was the third time around George that our plans need to be adjusted due to road closures!

However, we compensated for that disappoint by riding a lot more of the trails around the Garden Route Dam and University - you could spend all day exploring new routes here - some of which you can find on this Trail Forks page. Be cautious if you come here on a weekend or another busy day, as some of the trails are specifically downhill runs.

On returning to George, we stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant in the Botanical Garden, enjoying an ale from the George Brewery. One of the highlights throughout this trip was visiting beer gardens. These were often owned by small, craft breweries and were in beautiful settings, with great food and of course delicious beer.





Our cardboard bike boxes were still at the guest house where we had left them at the start of the trip, and it only took an hour or so to pack them up ready for the flight home. We took the usual precautions of removing discs, unscrewing the derailleur and padding everything well, but the boxes had barely a scratch when we picked them up at Valencia Airport three flights later!

All in all it was a very satisfying trip. It was something that we put together at the last minute after our original flight to Sri Lanka (via Dubai) was cancelled due to the war in Iran. I was somewhat apprehensive, due to South Africa's scary reputation and many comments online dissuading cycle tourists from visiting. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but the only danger I ever felt in Klein Karoo and the Garden Route were from the aggressive drivers.

The main highlights were the stunning gravel roads, particularly in the Swartberg Mountains, and the abundance of wildlife. The hotels were also fantastic, particularly the game reserves and lodges out of town, which were quite luxurious but still relatively affordable. The main negatives were the lack of historic sites to visit. The villages of Klein Karoo are some of the most historic in South Africa, but on many other tours I have been spoilt by being able to visit castles, ancient ruins, stunning old towns and other historic sites. I did somewhat miss that aspect of touring on this trip.

I also mentioned in the introduction how the very visible inequality made me feel a bit uncomfortable. South Africa is still a country with significant issues to overcome, and I am aware that as a tourist I neither fully understand the society, nor am in a position to do anything significant to change it. Despite the racial and equality issues though, nearly all South Africans that I met were friendly and welcoming - particularly in the more rural areas where tourists are somewhat less common.

Overall, of the two regions I toured around, I preferred the Klein Karoo to the Garden Route (although I liked the latter as well). It was wild and remote, yet safe. It was challenging, with great dirt roads, but not so hard that you couldn't appeeciate the scenery or stop for fun detours along the way. I would thoroughly recommend riding here, and spend time almost circling around like we did, rather than trying to rush across following less scenic routes towards Cape Town, Johannesburg or Namibia.

I don't have plans to return to South Africa in the near future, but I wouldn't rule it out either. It was not a country that I feel a burning desire to return to (unlike, for example, The Balkansor Georgia), but it was a very enjoyable three week trip, which provided some great riding and unique experiences.


South Africa Cycling Tour Overview

Part 1 - George to Rooiberg Lodge

Part 2 - Rooiberg to Prince Albert

Part 3 - Swartberg Mountains

Cycle Touring Guides