Buffelsrivier Trail Part 1

[RodS]

In planning our August flower trip we had to get from the Namaqua Park section to the Richtersveld. Following my normal policy of staying off the tar if at all possible, and taking the most direct / interesting route, I decided to do the Buffelsrivier trail. However, I could not find any info less than 3 years old (and not much of that), so I decided some of you might be interested in a short report.
Problem 1 was that T4A refused to make a route via the trail, so I had to learn about the "broken track" system used by T4A to stop the unwary from accidentally finding themselves on a route they cannot cope with. After a lot of zooming in and inching along on Basecamp I found the break. I made two waypoints named Track Break S and Track Break N, and constructed routes to / from them.
After a leisurely breakfast at Skuinsklip camp, a leisurely drive with lots of photo stops, and a nice lunch on the top of Wildeperdshoek Pass, suddenly it was 3 pm, and we had to get going. It is about 35 km to the Buffelsrivier valley, from where the trail goes back up into the next range of mountains, and the first 20 km were nothing but a very nice gravel road. The actual 4x4 bit has such an obscure start that we missed it twice - it turned to be just a gap in a fence, with no trace that a vehicle had ever driven in there. In the end, the trail is just an abandoned road leading past the ruins of an abandoned house. It is heavily eroded, and the continuous succession of dongas keeps speed to not much more than a walking pace. You start picturing all those diagrams of Approach Angles and Departure Angles, and wondering if the Fitment Centre was wise to mount the Air Spring valves under the rear bumper. Since there were no vehicle tracks, it seemed that this is not a popular route, and we could not be sure that we would not come to some impassable obstacle and have to turn back. In fact, a few more winters and I think you will need a pick with you to build ramps at some of the dongas.
The mountains were of course at their spring best, and there were wonderful views from the crest. There was a small troop of feral (I think) horses near the house ruin, and I wished that we had planned to camp there.
The last section down into the valley is more serious stuff - low range first gear mandatory. A choice between a thorn tree on the left and a crumbling track edge on the right left me with more deep gouges in the paint to add to those acquired in the Kalahari.
Reaching the valley floor, we crossed towards the next range, along a track posted "No entry - pipeline". The pipeline seems to be long gone however. The first up section showed us a large wash-out about 50 m up, so we called it a day. It was getting dark, en ons het nie meer lus gehad nie. We made a bush camp in the mouth of the little valley emerging there.
The next morning I was faced with a mutiny. The couple with us have traveled extensively all over South and East Africa in there Patrol, but they are not "hard core". They had not enjoyed the previous day at all, and refused to contemplate the next leg. So I am afraid I do not know what Part 2 looks like

Rod

[Mud Dog]

So what? .... did you turn bacK without even trying it???

Looks like you missed out on the adventure of what had all the promise of an exiting trip. Pics look great and I think you would have had a lot more awesome ones had you carried on.

Thanks for sharing, ..... maybe someone here knows the route.

[RodS]

No, we did not turn back, We carried on to Sendelingsdrift via Bakkrans Cave, then De Hoop, Kokerboomkloof, Tierhoek Cave and down Helskloof to Vioolsdrif. I just thought that these places are too well known to all to waste time your time on. We have every intention of doing Part 2, probably in March as part of an Augrabies trip.
We felt we couldn't just abandon the other people who we had invited along.

Rod