Gravel Burn 2025 event guide | Page 34

WHERE WE’ RE GOING

FIRST BURN CAMP: AVONTUUR

In the foothills of the Tsitsikamma mountains, Avontuur was once the inland terminus of a historic forest

railway line, used to haul timber through the mountains to the coast at Knysna. It was also the last stop on the Avontuur Railway – built by the government of the Cape Colony

between 1890 and 1906 to connect the Langkloof fruit-growing industry with the new port at Port Elizabeth. In the 1960s, the line became a tourist attraction, nicknamed the Apple Express. Today, Avontuur is still farming country – fruit, lucerne, sheep – and a fine place to take in the stillness and refill your energy stores ahead of Stage 2. Your hosts at the race’ s first Burn Camp are the Zondagh family, 10th-generation apple farmers.

STAGE 2 1O8km 115Om 12OOm

0km 10km 20km

30km

40km 50km 60km 70km 80km 90km 100km 108km

13 % PAVED 87 % UNPAVED PADSTAL SUMMIT

34 NEDBANK GRAVEL BURN