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BROWSE |
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Sights & Activities
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Chapman's Peak Drive
Scenic Drive, Hout Bay
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After being closed for several years due to rock slides
and unstable cliff faces, this fantastically scenic drive has reopened after
a major reconstruction that involved state-of-the-art engineering
techniques, some of which had never been used on South African roads. But
that wasn't the first engineering feat for this road that clings to the
mountainside. Work began on the drive in 1910, when it was considered an
impossibility. Charl Marais, a mining surveyor, wasn't deterred by the task
and set about surveying a route by sending a worker ahead of him to chop out
footholds and create rudimentary platforms for his theodolite. There are
stories of him hanging on to the side of the cliff by ropes and nearly
losing his life on a number of occasions. His tenacity paid off, and, with
the help of 700 convicts, dynamite, picks, and shovels, a road was chipped
and blasted out of the rock. Chapman's Peak Drive officially opened in 1922.
A reporter from a local newspaper waxed lyrical, writing that the road was
much like a woman, "always changing, luring, and at moments giving you a
quick sense of danger." You can access the drive from both Noordhoek and
Hout Bay. |
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