Advertisement
Published: January 22nd 2021
Edit Blog Post
We woke up as the sun shone through the verandah door into our room. After the 400 km North to South drive along the Drakensberg mountain range, we were quite happy to have a day off driving. We also woke up hearing a strange for us unusual noise. Walking out of the room we got a big surprise. A male peacock was courting a female with all his beauty, showing off his wonderful colorful tail and making the sounds only a guy in love can make. This pre breakfast spectacle happened on the lawn in front of our bedroom. No comments please...... The poor guy was not successful. The lady peacock left him standing and walked off after his show has ended. And we walked to our breakfast table, where freshly brewed coffee with all thinkable goodies were awaiting us.
Today we will travel to the Sani Pass up the Drakensberg mountains. It is an extremely difficult off road path climbing to 2'876 m altitude, to the Lesotho border. We can not cross it for the said reasons. Corona tourist closure will not allow us to visit the legendary Sani Mountain Lodge, Africa's highest pub, which is located only 8km
across the border in Lesotho. The route up Sani Pass starts at 1544 m, and climbs 1332 vertical meters. The road is a steep gravel road, full with large rocks and deep potholes, with a gradients of up to 1:3 (33%), which can be difficult to drive. In bad weather dangerously slippery and in winter possibly covered with snow and ice. It is not recommended to self drive, unless one is very experienced with 4X4 driving and has a vehicle like Landrover, Landcruiser or Ford Ranger with special tires. As ours was a sedan, we left the driving to a professional and enjoyed the scenery and the chats with our local Zulu driver. The pass lies between the border controls of both countries and is approximately 9 km in length. The Sani Pass dirt road is being upgraded from the South African side as we drove along. Whilst it may be important economically it will destroy a lot of the natural beauty and charm it has now. The environmental assessment prior to the road construction is not free of scrutiny and some locals see a corruption driven motive behind it. The Lesotho side is already tarred, curtesy to the PRC.
The Drakensberg escarpment stretches for more than 1'000 km from the Eastern Cape Province in the South, in North Easterly direction right through the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal, the FreeState, Mpumalanga and Limpopo towards the border of Zimbabwe. In Mpumalanga the mountain rages are called by the Africaaners population 'Klein Drankensberg'. We drove over them earlier in the journey when travelling to Hazyview. The highest peak of the range is Thabana Ntlenyana at 3'482m. Our travel from Clarens to Underberg was hence a very small part of the Drankensberg escarpment, but by far the most scenic.
Reaching the Lesotho border had somethin exotic for Nenad. So sad we could not enter. Also that beer in the highest pup eluded Nenad.... Well, so we focused alternatively on Nui's passion, the mountain flowers in the Drakensberg, especially the Protea flower family. The King Protea is South Africa’s national flower. More on this we shall see when visiting the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town in a weeks time.
Let's briefly speak about the Kingdom of Lesotho. It is a high-altitude, landlocked country encircled by South Africa, hence an enclave. It is crisscrossed by a network of rivers and mountain
ranges including the mentioned highest peak of the Drakensberg. Lesotho's capital is Maseru and the country has app. 2.1 million inhabitants. Its history is closely liked to King Moshoeshoe (I), who founded it in 1822. Throughout the 19h century the Soto fought battles with the Zulu, the Boers and the British giving them at times embarrassing defeats. in 1867 Moshoeshoe appealed to Queen Victoria, who agreed to make his kingdom a British protectorate. Moshoeshoe died in 1870, marking the end of the traditional era and the beginning of the colonial era. In 1884, the territory became a Crown colony by the name of Basutoland, with Maseru as its capital. It remained under direct rule by a governor, though effective internal power was wielded by traditional tribal chiefs. In 1905, a railway line was built to connect Maseru to the railway network of South Africa, boosting the area's economic possibilities. Basutoland gained its independence from the United Kingdom and became the Kingdom of Lesotho in 1966. Lesotho is a rather poor country deriving its income from agriculture, livestock, manufacturing, mining and of course tourism. It depends heavily on inflows of workers' remittances and receipts from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).
don't be sad
tomorrow is another day On our way down from the pass we were checked out by a clan of baboons. The chacma baboon, also known as the Cape baboon or yellow baboon, is like all other baboons, from the Old World monkey family. It is one of the largest of all monkeys species. Generally harmless, large males however can become very aggressive when wanting to grab food, also out of cars. So keep your windows closed when being approached.
On the way back to our estate we learned about the story of the two neighboring towns we passed by, Underberg (founded by Africaans) and Himeville (founded by British). A large number of tall beautiful trees line the main road between these two places. The trees were planted as a peace settling initiative by two ladies from these towns, as a symbol of bond. Around the 1890's there was a war like situation with road blockages, theft of stock and smaller armed skirmishes between them. Underberg being Lutheran and Himeville Anglican it was easy to get the simple people pumped up. The real reason was a political fight about who should get the railway access to the network of the country. Underberg won.
Himeville by the way, remained a lovely sleepy museum town worth a stop.
After a long day with plenty of African massage, we arrived to a Zulu party in the neighboring building. Zulu music and dances were a great background for our drinks and another great dinner that followed prepared by Malcom the Huguenot. African massage by the way you get when you sit in the car for a long while, driving over these horrible bumpy roads, which we did that day going to Sani.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0453s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb