Rosemary Hill is located to the east of Pretoria. It’s a multi-purpose country venue that includes a diverse range of offerings/activities, from light agriculture to weddings. Fortunately for us, it’s also a popular mountain biking venue. Rosemary Hill is a family owned and managed business headed up by Thomas and Theresa Franken.

Trails: There are more than 30km of marked, maintained mountain bike trails Rosemary Hill It’s divided into three main routes as follows:

5km

10km

33km

Situated on gently sloping land, the Rosemary Hill mountain bike trails are not intimidating with almost all sections easy to ride for all levels of mountain biker.

“We aim to keep our trails family-friendly so we avoid adding any high-risk trails. We do have some obstacles on our trails to keep the more experienced riders stimulated,” says Ferdi Lourens, the Trailsmaster.

What they lack in distance, they make up for in the fact that they’re almost entirely singletrack, which requires high levels of focus and leaves you more weary afterwards than you might expect. With limited gradient, you don’t have long recovery sections, so it tends to be a more ‘pedal-rich’ ride.

There are a couple of sections towards the end of the 33km trail that include rocks, which are best to dismount for if you’re not an experienced or skilled rider.

People: The trails master is Theresa’s brother, Ferdi Lourens, who knows how to ride bike and what makes a stimulating trail. Senzo is the guy with the spade who fine-tunes and maintains all the trails. Senzo also manages bike maintenance and bike rentals on weekends and helps with basic bike repair.

Local tip: On the 33km route you will reach a new pizza restaurant after 7km if you feel the need for a break and some refreshment. Not far from there you will see an area called Stokeville which offers experienced riders a good challenge. According to Ferdi, they are working on some additional sections of trail and the 33km route will be up to 40km by the end of February 2021.

Safety: 4/5

Operating hours: Seven days a week from 06h00-18h00 in spring and summer and 06h00-17h00 in autumn and winter.

Normal cost: R50 per adult and R35 for under-18s. Year pass is R600 per adult and R360 per child.

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