Bain's Passes

Pluto's Vale

AndrewAttributed

Andrew Bain built the road through Pluto's Vale as a military road, according to the 1964 monument text and a pass-guide site.

Access and status Pluto's Vale is a gravel district road, DR02039. No source read gives any information on access, gates or permission, and it is not known whether any stretch crosses private land. No permit office or landowner contact was found. Before you go, ask Makana Tourism, 63 High Street, Makhanda: tel 046 622 3241, email info@grahamstown.co.za (grahamstown.co.za). Do not pass closed gates or enter private land.
DR 02039Route
—Length
—Summit
GravelSurface

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Before you go

Road conditions change with weather, floods, fires and roadworks. Check the latest conditions with the road authority or local tourism office before you leave, and carry offline maps.

About this pass

Pluto's Vale is described as a genuine poort and a steep pass, one after the other, on the gravel DR02039 east of Makhanda. The 1964 monument to Andrew Bain at the Ecca Pass says he built the road to Fort Beaufort through the Ecca Pass and the road through Pluto's Vale as military roads, between 1837 and 1845.

Ross's chronology lists it as part of the military highway from Grahamstown down Pluto's Vale, across the Ecca flats and via Committees Drift to Breakfast Vlei, built 1842–45 under Bain's supervision (Bond 1956; Storrar 1984). Goetze's appendix of Andrew Bain's works lists "Pluto's Vale to Breakfast Vlei Road" separately. A route description from an unconfirmed source (original source site not recorded) calls it a thoroughly rewarding gravel pass with a peculiar name, passing through three interlinked game reserves that together form one of the largest reserves in the Eastern Cape, with black rhino and hippopotamus. Near the summit the Adam Krantz viewsite looks over the Great Fish River valley, and the route crosses an old steel lattice bridge.

History

Built by
Andrew Bain built the road through Pluto's Vale as a military road, according to the 1964 monument text and a pass-guide site.
Built
1837–45 (monument text). The pass guide says mid-19th century, during the Frontier Wars.
Location
Gravel road DR02039, east of the R67 near Makhanda towards Committees Drift and Breakfast Vlei, Eastern Cape
Notes
The pin is the published position of the valley called Pluto's Vale, given to the nearest arcminute (about 2 km); the road itself runs east from the R67 towards Committees Drift. The monument text is the only source for the years. No further source found with history for the poort itself: the Wikipedia Ecca Pass, SAHO Bain monument, Makana Tourism and Rhodes photo-archive results add nothing beyond the monument text and the pass guide. Ross comments that the Breakfast Vlei highway "would have included Pluto's Vale Pass"; no separate record of when the poort itself was built has been found. The route-description text was pasted without its source URL, so it is listed as from an unconfirmed source; Historical Marker Project and SAHO pages were checked and are empty.

Find it

Pin
-33.20000, 26.71670
Position of the valley called Pluto's Vale (GeoNames, via Mapcarta), given only to the nearest arcminute, about 2 km.
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Sources

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