Travel to Montagu

a pleasant stop on the way through the Little Karoo

Montagu is located in the Little Karoo area of the Western Cape.

Occupying the top of an impressive pass through the Langeberg Mountains, Montagu is an attractive town, with a pleasant historic centre.

The area is particularly well known for the production of dried fruit and you will probably encounter the characteristically orange coloured branding as you travel around the country. As the marketing material says : ‘Where dried fruit is a way of life.”

South of the mountain pass the landscapes of the Overberg (Ashton, Bonnievale and Robertson) are much better watered and fertile, meaning that there’s a lot of commercial agriculture and large wineries.

But north of the pass we enter the Little Karoo, a much drier area where the majority of the land is scrub-covered hills. The few settlements and small-scale agriculture cling to the ribbons of the occasional streams.

So it is that the town of Montagu feels like something of a jewel in an otherwise largely barren landscape. It’s pretty.

The area is well known for hiking, rock-climbing, horse-riding and quad-biking.

Most of the best places to stay in Montagu are in the town itself, notably including a number of guesthouses in restored colonial homesteads.

There are also some options out of town, both on the mountains to the north and on the agricultural plans to the south of the pass.

some interesting lodges