Tradouw Pass

We set off into Tradouw Pass towards the end of the day with a deadline for arriving in Swellendam so these photographs were taken from inside the car. The pass is 16 kms of tarred road, the R324, following the course of the Tradouw River through the Langeberg Mountains and linking Barrydale and Suurbraak. The name is Khoi is origin and means ‘the women’s way through’.

The name is Khoi is origin and means ‘the women’s way through’. The possibility of a pass was first raised by the settlers north of the mountain in the 1850s because they wanted to reach the port at Witsand, i.e. they wanted to get their produce to market. Thomas Bain was instructed to undertake the work which started in 1869 with convict labour, and which was completed in 1869. in 1974 the pass was rebuilt with some sections further away from the river bed, and planted with aloes, indigenous trees, and wild flowers, and new lookout points created where one can apparently see the remains of Anglo-Boer War Blockhouses