Page 45 - Bulletin 14 2010

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SUBURBAN NOTES Cape Times, 2 July 1936.
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Unknown Area In The Peninsula
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NEW ROAD WANTED OVER THE STEENBERG
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A new motor road should be constructed between Simon’s Town and Lakeside passing
over the Steenberg mountains according to the suggestion made by Mr. Lionel Gill, member of
the Divisional Council for Fish Hoek, with the object of providing an alternate route to Simon’s
Town from Cape Town and thus opening up a new and unknown part of the Peninsula.
In an interview with the Cape Times, Mr. Lionel Gill briefly explained his scheme.
“I believe that a road running behind the mountains would prove excellent for military
purposes,” he said. “The present coast road is too narrow and exposed for the movement of
troops and munitions between Simon’s Town and Cape Town.
“Above all it would be a new route for tourists. They would pass through scenery which
rivalled that of anywhere else in the world. It would help to encourage tourists to visit our
Peninsula, not only from overseas, but from up-country as well.”
Mr. R. C. Wallace, a former chief engineer of the South African Railways, who inspected
the site of the proposed road last week in company with Mr. Gill, said that it would be a very
easy road to construct, with slight gradients. He estimated that a sufficiently good road could be
constructed over the ten miles, which it would have to cover, at about £2,000 a mile, including a
bridge over the Elsies River, which flows down the Glencairn Valley.
Mr. Gill and Mr. Wallace agreed that the first step would be to build a road from the
Glencairn Valley to join the Kommetjie road and that it could be extended at a future date over
the Steenberg Mountains at Lakeside.
“The main road is getting much too congested,” Mr. Wallace pointed out. “A new road
such as the one proposed would provide wonderful picnicking facilities – a scarcity in the
Peninsula.
“At the present time this beauty spot is practically untouched as it is inaccessible by car.
Strategically the road would be of the most importance. There is plenty of rock about to make the
foundation and building could take place from both sides with great rapidity.”
A rough, stony track already exists where the proposed road would be built, which would
help to simplify building operations. In 1795 and in subsequent years the track was used by the
British troops as the only route between Simon’s Town and Cape Town. The troops used the road
regularly as they wintered in Simon’s Town every year to be sheltered from the bitter north-
westerly winds.

But Wallace had invented a myth: ‘Myth, n. a legend, a fabulous narrative founded on a remote

event, esp. those made in the early period of a people’s existence: an invented story: a falsehood.’
(Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, London.)