How does a stay in this guide support the featured causes?

When you book accommodation from this guide through Spekboom, a portion of the booking commission is directed to the linked causes. You can also donate to them directly.

Which causes does the Montagu guide feature?

This guide features Pietersfontein Conservancy, Cape Leopard Trust.

How many places to stay are in the Montagu guide?

This guide currently includes 7 places to stay. Nightly rates range from about R350 to R19,940.

Montagu, Where the Mountains Fold | Spekboom

Insider Guide: Montagu, Route 62

Montagu, Where the Mountains Fold

Hot springs, muscadel and a conservancy where farming meets conservation

You enter Montagu through a hole in a mountain. Cogmanskloof squeezes the road between folded cliffs, under the ruin of an old British fort, and delivers you without ceremony from the Breede River valley into the Klein Karoo. The light changes. The air dries out. Muscadel country begins.

Montagu has been a spa town since Victorian times, and its hot mineral springs still steam away at the edge of the village. Climbers know it as the best sport climbing in the country. But drive ten minutes up any gravel road and you are in older business: sheep farms, vineyards and mountain veld where a conservancy is quietly rewriting the rules of how farmland and wilderness share a fence line.

A conservancy between the vineyards

The Pietersfontein Conservancy works on the idea that conservation and farming are not opposites. Farms in the Pietersfontein valley set aside and manage veld for wildlife, protect the watercourses, and keep corridors open for the animals that have always moved through these folds, including the Cape mountain leopards the Cape Leopard Trust studies across this range.

Stay on one of the linked farms and the connection is not abstract. The veld you walk in the morning is the project. The stars you sit under are what the conservancy is keeping dark.

Where to stay in and around Montagu

Farm stays, cottages and reserves across the Montagu valley. New listings appear here automatically.

From R3,750

eco cabin

Hide | Montagu

422

Supports: Pietersfontein Conservancy, Cape Leopard Trust

From R1,750

tented safari camp

Patatsfontein Stay

423

Supports: Pietersfontein Conservancy, Cape Leopard Trust

From R350

self catering

Drie Kuilen Nature Reserve

9314

Supports: Cape Leopard Trust

From R1,595

cottage

Kingfisher Cottages

1472

Supports: Cape Leopard Trust

From R3,700

guest farm

Olive Stone Farm and Cottages

Supports: Cape Leopard Trust

From R19,940

safari lodge

Mont Eco Game Reserve

311

Supports: Endangered Wildlife Trust, Cape Leopard Trust

From R2,200

guest farm

Ludicks Farm

20108

Supports: Cape Leopard Trust

The Montagu day, done properly

Morning: coffee and the Saturday market if you have timed it right, then a walk up Lovers Walk into Badskloof, where the kloof narrows to a slot and the rock glows orange. Midday: a long farm lunch and a bottle of local muscadel. Afternoon: the hot springs, or a drive out on Route 62 with the mountains folding past the windows. Evening: lamb on the fire, and the kind of silence towns this size are built from.