Ostrich country, red hills, and the greatest gravel pass in South Africa. The Klein Karoo runs east from Oudtshoorn through De Rust towards Uniondale, walled in by the Swartberg to the north and the Outeniqua to the south — a valley made for long, dry, spectacular days on a gravel bike.
The Swartberg Pass is the crown — Thomas Bain's hand-packed masterpiece climbing to almost 1,600 metres in folded red rock, unsurfaced from bottom to top and regularly named among the world's great cycling climbs. Meiringspoort threads the same mountains at river level through a slot of orange cliffs. Add the quiet roads out to De Rust, the long line east to Uniondale, and a detour into Die Hel if you want a genuine expedition, and you have a week of riding that feels like nowhere else. These are also the home roads of the 36ONE MTB Challenge, the 361-kilometre ultra that circles the Klein Karoo from Oudtshoorn.
Autumn and spring are ideal — summer middays are fierce and winter nights sharp, but the light is extraordinary year-round. Our Klein Karoo journeys run fully supported, with a vehicle never far and cold water always closer than you expect.