Driver's views : Hogsback Dikeni Fort Beaufort Adelaide Bedford Cookhouse KwaNojoli etc. Oudtshoorn

The Eastern Cape province was formed in 1994, incorporating areas from the former Xhosa homelands of the Transkei and Ciskei, together with what was previously part of the Cape Province. This resulted in several anomalies, including the fact that the Province has four supreme courts (in Makhanda (formerly named Grahamstown), Gqeberha (formerly named Port Elizabeth), Bhisho and Mthatha, and had enclaves of KwaZulu-Natal in the province. The latter anomaly has fallen away with amendments to municipal and provincial boundaries.

The Xhosa Kingdom was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Africa, and had all states in the Eastern Cape as tributaries. Any group, people, or tribe that recognised the Xhosa Kingdom as Paramouncy became Xhosa, practiced Xhosa culture and used isiXhosa as their main language. Some of the tribes that fall under the category of Xhosa people include: AmaMpondo, AbaThembu, AmaMpondomise, AmaHlubi, AmaBhaca, AmaXesibe, AmaBomvana and more.

The Karoo is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is also not precisely defined. The Karoo is partly defined by its topography, geology and climate, and above all, its low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and extremes of heat and cold. The Karoo also hosted a well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils.

The Karoo formed an almost impenetrable barrier to the interior from Cape Town, and the early adventurers, explorers, hunters, and travelers on the way to the Highveld unanimously denounced it as a frightening place of great heat, great frosts, great floods, and great droughts. Today, it is still a place of great heat and frosts, and an annual rainfall of between 50 and 250 mm, though on some of the mountains it can be 250 to 500 mm higher than on the plains. However, underground water is found throughout the Karoo, which can be tapped by boreholes, making permanent settlements and sheep farming possible.

The xerophytic vegetation consists of aloes, mesembryanthemums, crassulas, euphorbias, stapelias, and desert ephemerals, spaced 50 cm or more apart, and becoming very sparse going northwards into Bushmanland and, from there, into the Kalahari Desert.

0:00 exit Hogsback
0:30 Hogsback to Alice / Dikeni
3:31 Alice / Dikeni
5:06 Alice / Somerset East / KwaNojoli to Fort Beaufort / KwaMaqoma
6:10 Fort Beaufort / KwaMaqoma
9:20 Fort Beaufort / KwaMaqoma to Adelaide
11:24 Adelaide
13:29 Adelaide to Bedford
15:09 Bedford
17:12 Bedford to Cookhouse
19:20 Cookhouse
19:54 Cookhouse to Somerset East / KwaNojoli
21:12 Somerset East / KwaNojoli
24:34 Somerset East / KwaNojoli to Pearston
27:13 Pearston
28:27 Pearston to Graaff-Reinet
31:49 Graaff-Reinet
32:35 Graaff-Reinet to Aberdeen
34:14 Aberdeen to Willowmore
40:30 Willowmore
42:40 Willowmore to De Rust
48:52 DeRust
50:03 Derust to Oudtshoorn
53:34 Oudtshoorn

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