The entrance to the Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve is located on this pass.

[1] At time of Jan van Riebeeck's settlement of the Cape in 1652, elephants were known to use a track seasonally to across the mountains and hence was called Olifantspad.

[2] That track was a few kilometres southwest of the current pass and was still being used by horse riders and cattle herders in the early 1800s.

[2] Governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Charles Somerset, in 1823 decided to build a new pass.

Constructed by Major Holloway using troops of the Royal African Corps it was completed in 1825 costing £8,000.