Bain's Passes

Victoria Road (Sea Point to Hout Bay)

ThomasDocumentedRoad

Thomas Bain was the engineer. Built with convict labour.

This is a road, not a pass. Victoria Road is a tarred coastal road along the Atlantic seaboard, not a mountain pass. It is included because it was Thomas Bain's last major road project. The pin marks Camps Bay, roughly the middle of the road. A pass-guide site lists an 8.5 km section of it, from Bakoven to the neck above Llandudno, as a scenic pass.
M6Route
About 17 kmLength
RoadType
TarSurface

See it on the mapLog your drive

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 road

Victoria Road is the tarred M6 along the Atlantic seaboard of the Cape Peninsula, about 17 km from Sea Point to Hout Bay. It starts among the apartment blocks of Sea Point and Bantry Bay, then runs south past the four beaches of Clifton, which are separated by granite boulders, and Maiden's Cove, with views of the Twelve Apostles. Camps Bay, with its long beach and palm-lined front, is the busiest stretch. Beyond it the road passes Bakoven and the Oudekraal picnic site, then the lookout above Llandudno, before the last stretch climbs above the Atlantic and drops into Hout Bay. South of Bakoven it is quieter, with the Twelve Apostles on one side and the sea on the other. A pass-guide site calls the section from Bakoven to the neck above Llandudno well engineered, with properly banked turns and smooth curves. Thomas Bain built the road in the 1880s with convict labour, and it was his last major road; plaques at the neck where it crosses to Hout Bay were unveiled in 1993.

History

Built by
Thomas Bain was the engineer. Built with convict labour.
Built
1884–1888 (Artefacts.co.za). Completion is given as 1887 (Wikipedia, Llandudno ratepayers' body) or 1888 (City of Cape Town).
Location
Atlantic seaboard of the Cape Peninsula: Sea Point, Bantry Bay, Clifton, Camps Bay, Bakoven, Oudekraal, Llandudno and Hout Bay, Western Cape
Notes
Route number, length and surface were from an unconfirmed source. Victoria Road is the Sea Point to Hout Bay section of the M6, which in all runs 42.5 km from the Cape Town CBD to Glencairn (Wikipedia). Completion is given as 1887 (Wikipedia, which says it was named for Queen Victoria's jubilee, and the Llandudno ratepayers' body) or 1888 (City of Cape Town). Thomas Bain's biography calls it his last road-building project.

Find it

Pin
-33.95000, 18.38330
Approximate position
Pin is Camps Bay, roughly the middle of the road, taken from Wikipedia. A road cannot be shown by one point.
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Sources

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