#3: [21-Feb-21]

#2: [10-Feb-02]

05-Mar-2002 -- This Confluence is much closer to Mossel Bay and George than the reference used in the confluence.org index. It lies at the western end of the Garden Route, a section of the southern Cape coast with many lakes, lagoons, mountains, rain forests and plantations.

It was a grey, overcast day when we started out on our drive from Sedgefield, on Swartvlei lagoon. The clouds turned to rain, particularly in George, which is affected by proximity to the Outeniqua mountains. To get to the confluence you leave the N2 motorway at Hartenbos and drive up towards Oudtshoorn. From the map it appeared as though the confluence would be fairly close to a secondary road. The turnoff is at Brandwag, but is easy to miss – we went too far and had to back-track to find it.

A fairly good dirt road takes one around hills and past farms. The nearest approach to the Confluence was found about 7 km past the Du Toit Boerdery & Stene ("Farm & brickworks"). The Confluence lay down in a valley, and it would have taken a good while to walk down through the veld. We found some gates leading onto the farm, but no sign of anyone we could ask for permission, and we did not fancy the idea of driving onto the farm, and then running into an irate farmer.

Photo 1 shows a view from the road down towards the confluence point. Here you can see the natural vegetation along the roadside, typical Cape "fynbos", a mixture of proteas, restios and ericas. Photo 2 shows a panoramic view of the area with the confluence point in the valley near the centre of the view. In Photo 3 you can see our track past the confluence point.

We did obtain the name of the owner of the property, and discovered that his house was some 20 km further on. Hopefully we will complete this visit at a later date, unless someone else gets there first.

Coordinator's Note: This confluence point was reindexed to reflect that there is, in fact, a city closer than 100 miles!