The Tsitsikamma mountains form an east-west

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

located in the

Garden Route The Garden Route (Afrikaans: ''Tuinroete'') is a stretch of the south-eastern coast of South Africa which extends from Witsand in the Western Cape to the border of Tsitsikamma Storms River in the Eastern Cape. The name comes from the verdant an ...

region of the southern

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

n coast in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

and

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

provinces. Tsitsikamma means 'place of much water' in the

Khoekhoe language The Khoekhoe language (), also known by the ethnic terms Nama (''Namagowab'') , Damara (''ǂNūkhoegowab''), or Nama/Damara and formerly as Hottentot, is the most widespread of the non-Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy use o ...

Physiography

The Tsitsikamma Range stretches just over 80 km from the

Keurbooms River The Keurbooms River ( af, Keurboomsrivier) is a river in the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The river has its sources south of Uniondale in the Langkloof and flows in a roughly southeastern direction. It passes De Vlugt and the Prince A ...

in the west just north of

Plettenberg Bay Plettenberg Bay, nicknamed Plet or Plett, is the primary town of the Bitou Local Municipality in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. As of the census of 2001, there were 29,149 population. It was originally named Bahia Formosa ("beautifu ...

, to Kareedouw Pass and the

Eerste River The Eerste River, located in the Western Cape, South Africa, rises on Dwarsberg 60 km east of Cape Town at the head of Jonkershoek. The Eerste River catchment covers the eastern part of the Cape Flats lying to the west of the Hottentots Ho ...

in the east near the town of

Kareedouw Kareedouw or Kareedowns is a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the administrative centre for the Kou-Kamma Local Municipality, Kou-Kamma Municipality in the Sarah Baartman District Municipality, Sarah Baartman District of ...

, and forms a continuous range with the

Outeniqua Mountains The Outeniqua Mountains, named after the Outeniqua Khoikhoi who lived there, is a mountain range that runs a parallel to the southern coast of South Africa, and forms a continuous range with the Langeberg to the west and the Tsitsikamma Mountains ...

to the west. The range consists almost exclusively of

Table Mountain sandstone The Table Mountain Sandstone (TMS) is a group of rock formations within the Cape Supergroup sequence of rocks. Although the term "Table Mountain Sandstone" is still widely used in common parlance, the term TMS is no longer formally recogni ...

which is extremely erosion-resistant. Peak Formosa is the highest point in the range at 1675 m. The climate of the range is extremely mild, with temperature variations only between 10 °C and 25 °C generally and rainfall exceeding 1000 mm per annum, thus the region supports verdant

fynbos Fynbos (; meaning fine plants) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. This area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean clim ...

and

Afromontane The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions ...

temperate

gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

habitats. Snow sometimes occurs on the highest peaks in winter. The topography of the mountains is interesting, in that the range rises abruptly from the south at a very defined line that runs almost due east-west at the 34° south latitude. This is due to the very regular nature of the rise of the Table Mountain Sandstone in an

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

fold structure above the grade of the surrounding Tsitsikamma coastal plateau.

The Region

The

Tsitsikamma National Park The Tsitsikamma National Park is a protected area on the Garden Route, Western Cape and Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is a coastal reserve well known for its indigenous forests, dramatic coastline, and the Otter Trail. On 6 March 2009 it was ama ...

lies just to the south of the range on the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

. The region between the range and the ocean also bears the name Tsitsikamma and is characterised by some cattle farms, sparse settlements and dense

(Temperate) gallery forest. This region sits on a 200m high plateau between the mountains and steep cliffs which drop into the

Bloukrans Bridge The Bloukrans Bridge is an arch bridge located near Nature's Valley, Western Cape, South Africa. Constructed by Concor between February 1980 and June 1983, the bridge stands at a height of 216m above the Bloukrans River. Its central span is ...

is on the border between the

Eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

and

provinces, and sports the highest bungee jump in the world. Tsitsikamma Mountains01

References

{{reflist

External links

Tsitsikamma National Park
Mountain ranges of the Western Cape Mountain ranges of the Eastern Cape

Physiography

The Region

See also

References

External links