Kowyn Pass

The pass is believed to have been built along an ancient pedestrian route which connected the lowveld to higher areas towards the west.^[2] It is named for the 19th century Bakwena chief Kobêng Moxane, who the Voortrekkers referred to as Kowyn.^[3] He settled his faction of the Pulana tribe on the Graskop escarpment, after the Swazis scattered them from a former settlement near Pretoriuskop.^[2] They were Sotho-speaking people who were initially displaced from the highveld by the disturbances of the Mfecane,^[4] and subsequently migrated northwards to escape raids by the Swazis.

A major rock fall occurred in 1973 at a point where the pass skirts a very steep hill. When rock falls continued despite the area being anchored, the Transvaal Provincial Roads Authority decided in 1977 to construct a reinforced concrete rockfall shelter as a permanent and fail-safe protective measure. The construction of the shelter, some 170 metres long, was completed in August 1980.^[5]