Swartberg Pass

The Swartberg Pass on the R328 runs over the Swartberg mountain range (black mountain in English) which runs roughly east–west along the northern edge of the semi-arid area called the Little Karoo in the Western Cape province of South Africa.

The construction of the Swartberg pass was started under the guidance of Jan Tassies who used 100 workers from Mozambique.

To the north of the range lies the other large semi-arid area in South Africa, the Great Karoo.

[3] The contortions in the rock display astonishing anticlines and synclines, and the vivid coloration of the surrounding Quartzite is remarkable.

Here, seven-hundred-metre-high quartzite cliffs of the upper Table Mountain Group can be seen, and these are often tilted through 90 degrees (sometimes even more).