John and Kev's Ride From Notties 2 Blouberg via Putsonderwater and Namibia

John Loos and Kevin Meier started an epic ride from Nottingham Road in KZN to Blouberg, Cape Town, via Putsonderwater and Namibia, on Friday 4 April 2025 in the early hours of the morning.

The plan had been to ride a largely gravel road route spanning over 2,000 miles (3,200km+), but abnormally heavy rains over KZN, the Free State and part of the Northern Cape in the first 5 days led them to scuttle that plan, rather sticking largely to tar roads to avoid a mud bath.

The originally planned route is detailed on the Notties-Parys-Le Cap - Namibe Detour - page. Click on link below:

Notties-Parys Le Cap - Namibia Detour - 2,000 Miler · Ride with GPS

The eventual "weather-adjusted" ride, however, was 2,628.5km in distance, and included a total of 18,006 metres of vertical ascent.

Click on the link below to the eventual ride route and downloadable GPX file on RidewithGPS:

Notties 2 Cape via Putsonderwater and Namibia · Ride with GPS

The ride started in the early hours in Nottingham Road, in the pouring rain, the destination for the first night’s sleep being the Border Post, a pretty little guest house at the top of Oliviershoek Pass where KZN borders with the former Republic of the Free State

Then,  it was into the Free State starting with a few splendid views of one of SA,s major dams, the Sterkfontein Dam. This dam is the 3rd largest in South Africa, the dam is unique in that it doesn’t have overflow spillways. As massive as it is, it is not built on any significant river, but receives most of its water via the Drakensburg Pumped Storage Scheme…..water being pumped up over the Great Escarpment from the lower lying Thukela River on the KZN side. 

The dam was built back around 1980, aiding the diversion of water from KZN to the rapidly growing inland Transvaal region economy at the time.

Shortly thereafter, where our planned route turned onto the first gravel road of the day, we realised that it was time for change…..changing our route to tar roads and hot footing it through the Free State as quickly as possible to the hopefully drier Northern Cape. We had run into abnormal rainfall in the inland regions, and the gravel roads had become a mud bath.

The diversion gave us a chance to experience some of the Free State Province’s decay. The province is fortunate to have a few key national roads criss-crossing it, well-maintained by Sanral, due to its central location in South Africa. But once off the national roads, and onto roads that are the responsibility of its provincial and local governments, many of the roads have become almost unusable with cars…..nice however for cyclists on mountain bikes who appreciate a lack of traffic.

On the 3rd day, the rain cleared for long enough for us to enjoy a roadside breakfast provided by Kev’s biking relatives who pitched up by surprise from Joburg. 

The rain would persist for much of the first 5 days, as we hot-footed it to the west in search of drier land.

There was little time spent sight seeing in this poor weather…..as we moved through a number of small forgotten Free State Towns. These included Petrus Steyn, one of a number of towns named after former Free State President Steyn. There was also Heilbron, which served as the capital of the Free State Republic for a few weeks near the end of the Anglo-Boer War, and Bothaville, the major town in the region's "Maize Triangle".

Then it was on to Kimberley, the capital of the Northern Cape Province, as well as the Griqualand West’s main city, is famous for the diamond rush that gave rise to what is believed to be the biggest and deepest hand dug hole in the world, known as the “Big Hole”. It was also the 1st town in the Southern hemisphere to get street lights interestingly. Once upon a time it had a stock exchange too.

West of Kimberley as we headed for Griekwastad, the former capital of Griqualand West Colony, the rain lessened, the weather began to dry up….the sunsets were observable….and it was almost time to resume gravel road riding along out initially planned route.

One of the highlights not to be missed, as we got back onto our originally planned track, was the visit to the famous ghost settlement of Putsonderwater. Putsonderwater is a little abandoned but famous railway station For those of you not having grown up in Afrikaans communities, whereas the English expression from “here to Timbuktu” is used to describe a long and difficult journey to a far off place, the Afrikaners use Putsonderwater instead. So the place is surprisingly famous in SA for an abandoned railway station settlement.

During the ride, we crossed the majestic Vaal River, SA’s 2nd longest river, and later on the Orange River, SA’s longest river, a good few times.

From Putsonderwater, it was westward to Kenhardt, and then more northward to Kakamas on the Orange River, not far from Upington. Upington is the other main town of the Northern Cape Province. The Upington-Kakamas region is known for major table grape farming operations, some wine making, and more recently the emergence of a significant solar farm industry….yes, the sun rarely goes behind the clouds in those parts.

A bit of trivia about Upington is that its airport has a 4.9km runway long runway, one of the longest in the world. It was built in the Apartheid boycott and sanctions years to facilitate the refuelling of large Boeing 747 aircraft traveling from Johannesburg to Europe at a time when SAA aircraft were not allowed to fly directly over Africa, thus lengthening their travel distance to Europe around West Africa. The aircraft could not take off with full tanks from Joburg due to its altitude, so the plan was to fly to lower altitude Upington and then refuel for a non-stop flight to Europe thereafter. Its intense heat also contributed to the long runway plan. 

We jumped onto the N14 from Kakamas in a westerly direction for part of the ride to Onseepkans border town. This section of N14 is nice and flat and fast. We are told that foreign vehicle manufacturers are authorized to test vehicles on that stretch of road…..with a speed limit of 250km/hour for them…we couldn't quite reach such speeds.

Then, it was into Namibia for another highlight of the trip....a loop past the awesome Fish River Canyon at Hobas via Karasburg and Grunau...a visit to the canyon,,,,and then back southward to the Orange River at Aussenkehr table grape farming town. Table grape farmers farm in a near desert region there, fully under irrigation from the Orange River.

Thereafter it was southwards back into South Africa at Vioolsdrif....and down the N7 road via Steinkopf, Springbok, Kamieskroon, Garies and Nuwerus, whereafter we would turn off west towards the West Coast of the Western Cape.

John found his rear shock slowly deflating, and his shock pump faulty, on this stretch. Nothing like a quick call or two to the Springbok cycling community, and the very kind Spar owner in Springbok gave him a shock pump to pump away with for the rest of the trip. One finds great people out in SA’s rural regions.

At Kamieskroon Hotel it would be the very special Malawian gentleman with 10 hands who did everything from cook and serve our food and drinks to washing and drying all our kit in a matter of a few hours before bed time.

After turning off the N7 at Nuwerus, a really lovely part of the ride awaited, via the somewhat touristy West Coast of the Western Cape Province. The stretch started when we hit the coast at the town of Strandfontein, and ended at Velddrif, whereafter we turned inland to Hopefield and Malmesbury. It included the towns of Doringbaai, Lamberts Bay, Elands Bay and Dwarskersbos. Kev had an extra 20km ride back to Dwarskersbos from Velddrif….to fetch his backpack that he’d forgotten at a coffee shop there ….cementing his title of Chop of the Tour… by a narrow margin. John was the front runner for the title earlier in the ride when he asked Kev, whose gravel bike has no shocks, if he perhaps had a shock pump handy.

On the West Coast stretch we made extensive use of the Sishen - Saldanha iron ore rail line service road. This is one of SA’s few rail lines still functioning well it appears, but the service road is heavily rutted and in poor condition. Impressive ore trains of a few kms long could be seen, and I have read that world record length trains have been achieved on this line in the past ….near 4km long.

The final stretch of the trip saw us leave the West Coast….heading inland to Hopefield and on to The Swartland capital of Malmesbury….then a gentle run in along our standard approach to Blouberg via Kalbaskraal, Melkbos….and then onto the cool cycle path to Blouberg.

We rolled into Blouberg, the end of the ride, in 15 days and about 8 hours after starting in Nottingham Road, and what an awesome ride it was.

Eden on the Bay, Blouberg, was the end of this ride, as it has been for many of our past 1,000 mile rides from upcountry. It offers the best view of Cape Town's majestic Table Mountain on a clear day, and a picture frame for the customary end of ride photo

Whilst we hit abnormal rains for the 1st 5 days of this ride, the route is normally extremely dry through much of the Northern Cape and Namibia. It also promises to have extreme heat in summer, and extreme cold (at least for us soft South Africans) in winter.

This was a special and spectacular ride in many ways. It is a very different ride to, say, the Western Cape 50 Passes 1,000 Miler route, the latter being greener and wetter and far hillier, while this one is (normally) about dry, harsh and spectacularly rugged terrain....including a taste of the world's oldest desert, the Namib.  Carrying sufficient water over some lengthy distances between certain resupply points was  crucial here....and good cappucinos weren't always in abundance.

DISTANCES

Location                            Distance from Start        Distance from last            Amenities                                                                                                                           (Water/Food/Accommodation/Bike Maint.)                                                

Nottingham Road                        0km

Bergville                                      126km                          126km                        W/F/A

Border Post                                  168km                          42km                          W/F/A  

Kestell                                         245km                           77km                        W/F/A 

Reitz                                            312km                           67km                           WF/A 

Petrus Steyn                                348km                           36km                           W/F/A

Heilbron                                      391km                           43km                          W/F/A

Edenville                                     440km                           49km                        W/F/A

Kroonstad                                    487km                          47km                          W/F/A

Bothaville                                    564km                           77km                          W/F/A

Hoopstad                                      665km                          101km                          W/F/A

Hertzogville                                 717km                           52km                         W/F/A

Boshoff                                         812km                          95km                         W/F/A

Kimberley                                     865km                          53km                         W/F/A/BM

Schmidtsdrif                                 934km                          69km                         W/F

Campbell                                      970km                           36km                        W/F   

Griekwastad                                1,016km                         82km                        W/F/A

Groblershoop                               1,152km                        136km                       W/F

Putsonderwater                            1,200km                         48km                        Nothing

Kenhardt                                      1,274km                         74km                         W/F/A

Kakamas                                      1,364km                         90km                         W/F/A

Onseepkans                                 1,503km                         139km                       W/F/A

(Border Times 08h00 - 16h30)

Karasburg                                    1,607km                         104km                       W/F/A 

Grunau                                        1,657km                          50km                        W/F/A

Canyon Roadhouse                    1,728km                           71km                         W/F/A

Hobas                                          1,744km                          16km                       W/F/A

Fish River Canyon Viewpoint    1,756km                           12km                       Nothing 

Hobas                                           1,768                                12km                        W/F/A 

Canyon Lodge                             1,778km                         10km                          W/F/A

Ai Ais turn-off                             1,826km                         48km                       W/F/A (off route)

Aussenkehr                                  1,885km                         59km                        W/F/A 

Noordoewer                                  1,936km                        51km                          W/F/A

Vioolsdrif                                     1,941km                          5km                         W/F/A 

(Border Times 24 hours)

Steinkopf                                    2,008km                          67km                           W/F/A

Springbok                                   2,057km                          49km                         W/F/A 

Kamieskroon                              2,126km                           69 km                        W/F/A

Garies                                         2,172km                           46km                          W/F/A

Bitterfontein                               2,234km                           62km                           W/F

Nuwerus                                     2,250km                            16km                          W/F/A

Koekenaap                                  2,299km                            49km                          W/F

Lutzville                                     2,306km                            7km                         W/F/A

Strandfontein                              2,333km                            27km                           W/F/A

Doringbaai                                  2,340km                            7km                           W/F

Lamberts Bay                              2,376km                           36km                            W/F/A 

Elands Bay                                  2,403km                           27km                          W/F/A              

Dwarskersbos                             2,458km                           55km                            W/F/A

Velddrif                                       2,469km                           11km                            W/F/A 

Hopefield                                    2,510km                            41km                            W/F/A

Malmesbury                               2,571km                            61km                            W/F/A/BM

Kalbaskraal                                2,586km                           15km                            W/F

Melkbos                                     2,620km                           34km                            W/F/A

Blouberg                                    2,628km                            8km                           W/F/A