Three in One
Included within the Swartberg Nature Reserve are the Meiringspoort and Gamkaspoort Nature Reserves making a total 129 000 hectares of conservation area. There are few facilities throughout this vast area other than picnic spots, hiking trails with overnight huts and designated camping areas.
So, if hiking, the rock formations, vistas of fold mountains and antelope, leopard and baboon are all yours. There is fishing in the Gamka River and in the Gamkapoort Dam, but you must have a permit. Nature Conservation hiking trails are threaded throughout the Swartberg Nature Reserve and include the Swartberg National Hiking Way, Tierberg Trails and Gamkapoort Nature Reserve.
Die Hel
The Swartberg Nature Reserve is also known as the Gamkaskloof or Die Hel. You can ride over the Swartberg Pass, on a bike, there are worse ways of going to hell.
Die Hel, turns out to be a hidden valley in the Swartberg Mountains, isolated for a hundred years before the road was built in the 1960s. The lure of the world ended the life of the valley, today the old farmhouses belong to nature conservation, and are open to visitors as a base for hiking and mountain-biking through this forgotten oasis. There are also birding trips and guided ecological, geological and botanical tours of the whole area.
On the other side of the Swartberg Pass is the picture-perfect town of Prince Albert, situated at the Southern edge of the Great Karoo plain...