Karel on tour.: Meiringspoort.

Beaufort West to Mossel Bay via the wonderful Meiringspoort

On our way to Mossel Bay we stoped for coffee in Meiringspoort.

Entry to the poort is via Klaarstroom, 55 kms east of Prince Albert en route to Oudtshoorn and the coast. Following spectacular floods which caused great damage, the road has been reconstructed at a cost of R70 million. Meiringspoort was officially re-opened by the Western Cape Premier, Gerald Morkel, on 20th October 2000.

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The first road through the poort was constructed between 1856 and 1858. by Adam de Schmidt. On the morning of 3 March 1858 a colorful procession of about 250 mounted men and 100 distinguished guests in "spiders", carriages and wagons departed through a triumphal arch decorated with flags for the journey to Klaarstroom - where a deputation of important guests from Prince Albert and Beaufort West awaited their arrival under another triumphal arch.

The first freight of wool from the interior was dispatched to Mossel Bay through Meiringspoort in "twaalf lange wolwagens" (12 long ox-drawn wool wagons) on the same day.

The road through the poort is a remarkable engineering feat, but the overwhelming features of a drive through Meiringspoort are the wonders of nature. The folds of the Table Mountain sandstone strata tower above the road, constantly changing colour as you move through sunlight and shade. Hardy plants, including indigenous pelargoniums, cling to the precarious rock faces while birds, baboons and smaller fauna abound in the protected kloofs and crevices. Among the most scenic spots is the Skelm tumbling into a dark pool which, legend has it, is bottomless. (In 1938 it stopped flowing for the first time in human memory).

A beautiful mermaid was said to live in the pool at the foot of the waterfall. During the 1996 floods a story circulated that she had been washed out of the pool, down the Groot and Oliphants rivers and out to

sea. She had been caught in a fisherman's net and taken to the CP Nel Museum in Oudtshoorn, where she was preserved in spirits! The Museum was overwhelmed with telephone calls and visitors keen to see the mermaid!

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Look out for Herrie's Stone - there can't be much graffiti that has been declared a National Monument. C.J. Langenhoven carved the name of his famous elephant on a boulder in Meiringspoort in 1929.

The info center in Meiringspoort