The Western Cape produces 93 percent of South Africa’s olive oil, and the farms that make it are spread across three distinct regions — the Cape Winelands (30 to 90 minutes from Cape Town), the Breede River Valley and Route 62 corridor (90 minutes to 3 hours), and the Karoo (4 to 5 hours). Each region offers a different experience: quick tastings paired with wine in the Winelands, award-winning estates along the Breede River, and immersive farm-to-table experiences in the Karoo. Here are the olive farms worth visiting, organised by route.
Prince Albert is a five-hour drive from Cape Town, has more restaurants per capita than most towns in the Western Cape, sits at the foot of a UNESCO World Heritage mountain pass and offers stargazing so clear that professional astronomy operators have set up here permanently. A two-night weekend covers the Saturday market, a Swartberg Pass drive, an olive farm tour with tasting, award-winning cheese, at least two memorable dinners and a night sky you will not see anywhere near a city. Here is how to spend it.
Prince Albert has more restaurants per resident than almost any town in the Western Cape, and each one draws on the same Karoo pantry: slow-roasted lamb, artisan cheeses from Gay’s Guernsey Dairy, cold pressed olive oil from Swartrivier Farm and seasonal produce from the surrounding valley. From a six-table kitchen that has served the same menu for 24 years to a working olive farm where lunch comes with mountain views and an olive tasting, here is where to eat in Prince Albert.
The Swartberg Pass is a 27-kilometre gravel road that climbs 1,000 metres through the Swartberg Mountains, connecting Oudtshoorn to Prince Albert across one of the most dramatic mountain crossings in South Africa. Built by Thomas Bain using convict labour between 1881 and 1888, the pass is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a national monument. Here is everything to know before driving it.
In a region celebrated for lamb and wide open skies, a wood-fired pizza topped with kudu salami is quietly becoming one of the most talked-about dishes in the Karoo. At Cafe O on Swartrivier Farm in Prince Albert, it brings together game meat from the veld and artisan food made by hand — a single plate that captures the flavour of the landscape it comes from.
The dish is not complicated. Hand-stretched dough, a wood-fired oven, tomato sauce, mozzarella and slices of cured kudu salami finished with a drizzle of cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil from the farm next door. Yet it is this simplicity that keeps drawing visitors back, and it has become a quietly persuasive reason to add Prince Albert to a Karoo itinerary.
The Swartberg Pass, a UNESCO World Heritage Site carved through ancient quartzite mountains, has become one of the most celebrated road trip routes in the Western Cape — and the small Karoo town of Prince Albert, waiting on the other side, is the reason more travellers are making the journey every year.
The 27-kilometre gravel pass, built by master road engineer Thomas Bain between 1881 and 1888, connects the lush Klein Karoo to the arid Great Karoo through a landscape so geologically significant that it earned its place on the UNESCO list in 2011. For visitors driving from Cape Town, it is the dramatic final act of a road trip that combines coastal scenery, wine country charm and high-mountain spectacle in a single day.
Prince Albert has long been called the Jewel of the Karoo, and the title is not an exaggeration. This small town at the foot of the Swartberg Mountains has reinvented itself as one of South Africa’s most compelling food, art and nature destinations — a place where farm-to-table dining, world-class mountain passes and night skies free of light pollution converge in a single, unhurried weekend. Here is what to do when you get there.
Drive the Swartberg Pass: A National Monument on Gravel
No visit to Prince Albert is complete without driving the Swartberg Pass. Built by master road engineer Thomas Bain between 1881 and 1888, this gravel pass climbs to over 1 500 metres through some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in southern Africa. It was declared a National Monument and forms part of the Cape Floral Region UNESCO World Heritage Site buffer zone.
Tucked beneath the Swartberg Mountains, just four kilometres from the centre of Prince Albert, lies Swartrivier Farm — a working olive estate that has quietly earned its place as one of the Great Karoo’s most compelling visitor experiences. Long before olive tourism became a talking point in the Western Cape, this farm was pressing fruit and welcoming guests. It remains, by all accounts, the original Karoo olive farm.
Where It All Began: Swartrivier and the Karoo Olive Story
The story of olives in Prince Albert is older than most visitors expect. While the Western Cape’s winelands dominate the agricultural tourism map, the semi-arid Karoo has been producing olives for generations. Swartrivier Farm, home to O for Olive, sits at the heart of this tradition.
Find Us
Swartrivier Farm is 4 km from Prince Albert on the Kruidfontein Road (turn at the Prince Albert Golf Club and follow the signs).
