If you have a day or so to spare and are travelling between Cape Town (http://www.tourismcapetown.co.za/ctru/content/en/za/home) and George then it is highly recommended you take one of the most spectacular and unusual travel drives on Earth over some of the passes of the Western Cape (http://www.tourismcapetown.co.za/ctru/content/en/za/home). They are haunted to boot.

Many 19^th century South African passes, especially those in the Western Cape, are still considered engineering marvels. But there was a heavy human price that today is reflected in numerous ghost stories.

Until recently the spectacular mountain ranges along the Cape southern coast were regarded as insurmountable barriers rather than scenic wonders. That all began to change in 1806 when the Cape became a British colony. The most pressing need was for a highway into the interior from Cape Town through Ceres, which necessitated the building of a number of passes. For this they turned to the Cape’s overcrowded prisons for convict labourers and master road-builder Andrew Geddes Bain.

Michell’s and Bain’s Kloof Passes

Assisted by his son Thomas, Bain in 1846 began building Michell’s Pass, which connects Wolseley and Ceres along the course of the Breede River through the Skurweberg range, and in 1849 started work on Bain’s Kloof Pass that connects Wellington with the Breede River Valley through the spectacular Paradise Valley. For many this is the most beautiful in South Africa as Bain incorporated the most striking scenery in the design, including the granite overhang dubbed Dacres Pulpit and the Pilkington Bridge, which runs along a waterfall.

Legend has it that both these mountain passes are haunted. The old thatched toll house just below the railway crossing on Michell’s Pass has an unknown resident ghost. But the three on Bain’s Kloof Pass are much more interesting. The first is that of Lettie de Jager who was washed away in a flash flood on 22 May 1895 while climbing the Sneeukop with friends. Ever since, on stormy nights, her cries ‘Wait for me. Oh please, please wait for me!’ can be heard in the valley.

Another ghost haunts the top of the pass. It is most likely that of the toll keeper Bodendyk who was murdered at Eerste Tol at the top of the pass on 23 September 1888. The most recent apparitions seen in the valley are those of a terrified woman and her dog who were murdered in 1978 at the ruins of the mansion, Wolkerus, just above the Tweede Tol Picnic and Campsite half way down the pass.

Swartberg Pass

If Bain’s Kloof Pass was Andrew’s masterpiece, then the Swartberg Pass was Thomas’s.

Connecting the Klein Karoo and the Karoo over the Swartberg range, this dramatic Western Cape pass rises 1 585 metres between Oudshoorn and Prince Albert. Author Lawrence Green wrote: ‘I have travelled only one road in my lifetime more dramatic, and that was the fifteen thousand foot pass beyond Darjeeling that leads into Tibet.’

There are three haunted sites all towards the Prince Albert summit. At a hairpin bend, close to the turnoff to Die Hel, there have been sightings of the ghost of a convict guard who accidentally shot himself during construction.

Further up is a spot where travellers report a sudden drop in temperature. It is here that thirty convicts died when the roof of their hut collapsed during a snowstorm. And in 1890 a family were trapped on the pass by a blizzard. They took shelter in an old convicts’ hut, but this was not enough and two of the daughters froze. It is said that their cries can still be heard where the structure once stood.

Montagu Pass

The Montagu Pass between George and Oudtshoorn replaced a number of notorious passes over the Outeniqua Mountains of the Western Cape. Opened in 1847, it featured stone bridges and tunnels of foliage from ancient trees. Halfway up was a stone tollhouse, which still stands, and a blacksmith’s shop to repair vehicles damaged by difficult passage.

Near the toll is the restless ghost of a convict brutally murdered by a fellow labourer during construction. He is said to appear at midnight and is reputed to break into a fury if a traveller is passing the spot at the time.

There is reputed to be another haunted spot on the pass. At Moertjiesklip, a massive boulder just past Die Noute, a chain gang was crushed by a rock fall – their ghosts reappearing on the anniversary of the tragedy.