Hidden Pleasure

Birding the Baviaanskloof

- Mike Buckham

The lush valley of the Baviaanskloof in the Eastern Cape stretches for approximately 200 kilometres in a roughly west to east direction, between the towns of Willowmore in the west and Patensie in the east. The kloof nestles between the Kouga Mountains to the south and the Baviaanskloof range to the north.

It is not really on the way to anywhere and ranks as one of the more remote wilderness areas in South Africa. If your destination isn’t specifically the Baviaans, then it is unlikely that you will ever land up there. Although we have holidayed in the Eastern Cape for the past 30 years, we had never visited the Baviaanskloof, so this year we decided to change that and headed there for a few days during the summer holidays.

A single road, the R332, leads into and out of the Baviaans. It enters the kloof in the west at the Nuwekloof Pass (the real start of any Baviaans adventure), about 40 kilo­ metres from Willowmore, and pops out at the eastern end at Kodomo, about 40 kilometres from the relatively advanced civilisation of Patensie. Just about every­ thing in between is true wilderness, with no cell phone reception and a real feeling of isolated peace and solitude.