Citrusdal is a young town in an old valley. The town was founded in 1916. People had been coming for the warm water long before that: the San used the hot spring first, and the Dutch East India Company wrote it down in 1739. Between the Olifants River and the Cederberg, this is one of the oldest continuously visited places in the Western Cape, and the town was the last thing to arrive.
Who lived here first?
The San were here first, and for a very long time. They used the hot spring for thousands of years, and they left their mark on the rock: more than 2,500 recorded rock art sites across the Cederberg, some of them thousands of years old. It is one of the richest concentrations of rock art on the continent.
Then, in 1660, the explorer Jan Danckaert reached a river crowded with elephant and named it for them: the Olifants. The Dutch East India Company followed. In 1725 it established Modderfontein, the first colonial farm in the valley. It is still standing, as an old village and gallery you can visit.
Nobody who came in the seventeenth century found an empty valley. They found an old one.
How old are The Baths hot springs?
The paperwork says 1739. That year a report to the Company's Council of Policy mentioned "the farm with the warm baths", and the spring entered the written record. Local legend has a better story: a herdsman's ox named Kolberg kicked the spring open with its hoof.
Either way, word spread. In 1763 Governor Rijk Tulbagh had the bathhouses renovated, for himself and a few privileged burghers. The botanists Carl Thunberg and Francis Masson came too, drawn less by the water than by the fynbos on the mountains around it.
In 1855 the springs were sold into private hands for £300 and eighty morgen of ground. In 1903 a Scotsman, James McGregor, bought them and built the resort. His family ran it for 112 years, until 2015.
Owners came and went. The water never changed. It still comes out of the mountain at 43 °C, roughly 105 000 litres every hour, just as it did when the Company's clerks first noted it down. Visiting The Baths today ›
A timeline of the Citrusdal valley
Jan Danckaert names the Olifants River.
Modderfontein established — the first VOC farm in the valley.
The hot springs first recorded in Dutch East India Company documents.
Governor Tulbagh renovates the bathhouses; botanists Thunberg and Masson visit.
The Baths sold into private ownership for £300 and eighty morgen of ground.
Thomas Bain builds the first mountain pass through the neck — Grey's Pass — using convict labour.
Scottish entrepreneur James McGregor buys The Baths and develops the resort.
The town of Citrusdal is founded by the Dutch Reformed Church.
Citrusdal becomes a municipality (1 March 1957).
The pass is rebuilt to an easier gradient and renamed Piekenierskloof.
The Baths passes out of McGregor family hands after 112 years.
Historical dates from The Baths, Wikipedia, Mountain Passes South Africa and VOC records.
Why is it called Citrusdal?
"Citrusdal" means citrus valley in Afrikaans, and when the town was named in 1916 citrus was already growing here. On the Hexrivier farm just outside town, South Africa's oldest orange tree, more than 160 years old and a national monument, still bears fruit. It was planted before there was a town to name.
A century on, the deep, well-drained soils and hot, dry summers grow oranges, lemons and soft citrus that ship around the world. The valley now produces roughly 14% of South Africa's entire citrus crop.
The mountains behind it grow the valley's other famous crop. Rooibos grows commercially nowhere else on earth, and the Cederberg produces more than 90% of South Africa's crop, so a cup of it is, almost by definition, a cup of this place. Its own story, from Khoi and San knowledge to a protected name in Europe, is on our rooibos page.
Who built the Piekenierskloof Pass?
The road you drive in on has its own story. In 1857 the engineer Thomas Bain — builder of many of the Cape's great mountain passes — cut the first road through the neck above the town, using between 100 and 220 convict labourers. He named it Grey's Pass after the Cape governor Sir George Grey.
The route's older name was Piquenierskloof, after the Piekeniers — the pikemen once posted to guard the mountain gateway. When the pass was rebuilt to an easier gradient in 1958 for the modern N7, it took that original name back: Piekenierskloof.
The pikemen are long gone. But the gateway still works the way it always did: you climb, you crest, and the whole valley opens up below you at once. If you are only passing through on the N7, here is what is worth stopping for.
Pass history from Mountain Passes South Africa.
How far is Citrusdal from Cape Town?
Citrusdal is 176 km north of Cape Town — about a two-hour drive up the N7, over the Piekenierskloof Pass and down into the valley. It sits in the Cederberg Local Municipality of the West Coast District, with a population of about 7,200 (2011 census).
Citrusdal history — quick questions
Where is Citrusdal?
Citrusdal is in the Olifants River valley of the Western Cape, at the foot of the Cederberg mountains, 176 km north of Cape Town on the N7.
What is Citrusdal known for?
Its natural hot springs (The Baths), citrus farming — the valley grows about 14% of South Africa's citrus crop — and rooibos tea, plus the Cederberg's hiking, bouldering and San rock art.
Is Citrusdal worth visiting?
Yes — it pairs a 43 °C natural hot spring recorded since 1739 with citrus and rooibos farms, mountain adventure and dark night skies, all two hours from Cape Town. It suits a slow weekend or an active one.
Last updated September 2026 · sources cited throughout · see also our visitor guide.