GAMKASKLOOF NATURE RESERVE
The lure of an isolated valley
By: Engela Duvenage

Once upon a time, in a secluded valley zigzagging the folds of a towering mountain range, a farmer worked his lands and raised his children within the sheltered confines of a community of 130 souls.

Together with his wife, sons and daughters, he grew everything that the family needed to survive. Goats provided milk and butter, a pig slaughtered in winter added flavour to a hearty bean stew or soup on cold nights. Honey was found in the mountains, they fished in the river and built their home of clay, reeds and wood.

To the farmer, his donkeys were a status symbol, just as 4x4’s are today. They were his means of travel, his tractors, plough machine, his silent companions when he left the valley on foot.

Every few months the farmer would load dried figs, raisins and animal skins onto his train of donkeys and walk a few days to the nearest town to trade these items for coffee, sugar, material and hand implements with which he worked his fields.

The farmer could have been any of a number of people – Jan, Piet or Andries. Maybe he was a Mostert, a Marais or a Cordier, even a Nel or Rheeder, for these were the names of the first families to settle in Gamkaskloof. The Hell, or the Valley of Lions, as it is also called, lies in an isolated valley between Oudtshoorn and Prince Albert in the Swartberg mountains.

The legend of Gamkaskloof has all the makings of a fable, of a real Afrikaner "spekskiet" story. However, the tale of how its people struggled for more than 150 years to tame nature and to cement a community with its own social structure, school and cultural traditions, is one of perseverance, but later also one of dreams abandoned as the area became depopulated.

The Gamkaskloof story

According to legend, a herdsman found the fertile valley when he went in search of missing cattle. By the 1830s, families came to settle here.

There was no highway to the Kloof; rather, it was a road less traveled, and for more than 100 years the area was only accessible on foot or on horseback through the river gorge or over the steep mountains. Now and again journalists and other adventurers ventured into the Kloof, only to add more stories – some far from true - to the growing folklore that surrounded this isolated community.

Nearly 60 years after the first automobile arrived in South Africa, a group of men carried in a Morris over rugged terrain to bring the Kloof its first vehicle. But it was only four years later, in 1962, that a proper gravel road was built, a real "highway" compared to the means of travel the Kloof’s people were used to. Another part of the Kloof’s former isolation was lost after telephones were installed in 1965, nearly 80 years after the first telephone rang in South Africa.

Severe drought over the years, the challenges that modern life had on a subsistence lifestyle, the lure of life in a town, with churches, schools and entertainment, took its toll on the Kloof’s population. By the 1980s, many farms that had remained in the hands of the same family for decades were sold.

By the 1990s, the greater part of the valley was incorporated in the Swartberg Nature Reserve and is now managed by Cape Nature Conservation.

Many of the raw clay brick houses stood empty for years, slowly becoming ruins that seemed beyond repair. But in 1999, restoration work to the vernacular Karoo-style houses started in earnest. The plan was to convert the old homes into self-catering accommodation for visitors to learn about the spirit of this conservation tourism venture that lies within the Swartberg Nature Reserve.

After an initial bumpy start, the Kloof seems to be back on the road to success. "The biggest challenge, however, is to conserve the soul and character of the Kloof," says Eureka Barnard, chair of the Gamkaskloof Advisory Committee

The story of Gamkaskloof is the ideal teaser to lure visitors to the area with its natural beauty of fynbos and succulent karoo veld, rugged mountains and the diversity of animal and bird life.

Among the various hiking routes criss-crossing the area is also an interpretation trail, which guides the hiker on a short tour of the history and nature of the Kloof.

Freshwater angling (with a permit) in the Gamka River, bird watching and mountain biking along designated routes are also strongly recommended.

All this makes it worthwhile to tame the steep slopes of the Elandspad road to the Kloof.
 

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