“Dit is nie meer Gauteng nie, meneer,” said the man driving the first Hilux, referring to the GP licence plate affixed to the front of our car. He was right; we were about as far away from the big city as you can imagine, somewhere high in the Cederberg. And, in any case, I needed no help understanding that we had pushed the boundaries of sensible decision-making. To channel Withnail’s dawning horror from Withnail and I, we had gone on an adventure by mistake.
It’s all a bit cringeworthy. We had loaded the kids into a borrowed Ford Territory and gone to stay at De Pakhuys. We thought we might take the long way home and agreed to meet up with some friends at Sanddrif in the southern Cederberg. Like a typical city slicker, I whacked it into Google maps on Apple CarPlay in the Ford and thought very little about it.
The gravel road to and from Bushmans Kloof to Wuppertal through the Biedouw Valley is very pretty indeed and not in the best condition, but one of the Territory’s most likable features is the ride quality. With four in the car and the boot full, it was very comfortable and seemed completely unfussed by the conditions. A front-wheel-drive crossover, the Territory is no 4x4, but the raised ride height and comfort-focused set-up means it is a genuinely good gravel cruiser.
It was in Wuppertal where I made the first bad decision, which was to dismiss as over-dramatic a sign that read “4x4 voertuig aanbeveel vir pad na Matjiesrivier”. I think this “4x4-only” thing is often nonsense and excludes ordinary motorists with no good reason. Years ago, for TopGear magazine, I drove to De Hoop deep in the Richtersveld in a Renault Sandero hatchback to make this exact point.
The tour guide who observed that the Parker family in their Ford Territory were fish out of water was the first of about 20 kitted-out 4x4 bakkies with off-road tyres, rooftop tents and off-road caravans. They had gone on this adventure deliberately and with the right equipment. I had thoughtlessly followed Google Maps.
The first stretch out of Wuppertal, what I have since learnt is known as Kerskop Pass, was pretty terrifying, with severe drop-offs and no room to manoeuvre. I have no idea what we would have done if we’d encountered traffic on that stretch. The road was in poor condition and even the Territory’s forgiving nature was battered by corrugations and rocks. At the top of the climb we found ourselves in a peculiar kind of Eden, with proteas and leucadendrons thriving amid giant rocks scattered about like shrapnel from some vast and distant event.
Having driven through the isolated hamlet of Eselbank, the road deteriorated further into a track and we were forced to ford a couple of streams. My heart almost stopped as one was far deeper than it had originally looked. The chatter in the car faded as we realised that we may have bitten off more than we could chew.
The Territory, though, somehow took it all in its stride. Approach, breakover and departure angles are good enough for it to manage the conditions without damage to the undercarriage, and even on the larger rims attached to the car we were driving, the tyres seemed to cope with the chaos.
About 20km after Wuppertal I was beginning to encounter obstacles that were genuinely challenging, rocky steps and washouts, but by this stage I had pretty much bought into a quite severe road trip sunk-cost fallacy in which I felt we had come too far and spent too much time on the road since leaving De Pakhuys to contemplate the sensible option: turn around and give up.
There has been a great deal of rain in the Cederberg, and by the time we descended on a truly dire track into Matjiesrivier and a more sensible gravel road, the Ford was absolutely caked in mud and dust and somewhere up in the mountains we had also managed to shed our licence plate and a piece of plastic trim, probably when wehit a wall of water we hadn’t anticipated.
In my 20 years of writing about cars this was one of my less inspired moments and occasioned an embarrassing discussion with Ford’s fleet managers, but the whole accidental adventure endeared the Territory to me. On the N7 returning to Cape Town it reminded me of what a superb long-distance roadtripper it is. It is very quiet at highway speeds and rear legroom is vast. The 1.8l turbopetrol motor is punchy and torquey, allowing for fuss-free overtaking and cruising.
Back in town the car’s irritating brakes (they are over-sensitive and grabby) announce themselves again, but as a day-to-day school-run family car there is a lot to like in the Territory. It is no adventure SUV but, as I discovered by complete accident, it can handle way more than you’d think.
Despite the drama, the trip has firmed my sense that a lot of “4x4-only” routes are nothing of the sort. With all due respect to the fellows with winches, jacked-up suspension and monster-truck tyres, this city boy with soft hands drove the Kerskop Pass in a front-wheel-drive family crossover by accident. Put that in your hydraulic locking diff and smoke it.
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