Trip Report - Roof of Africa...

[iandvl]

Please watch this space. I'm busy typing as we go.

I normally start with a GPS map of my trips, but I've not even had a chance to sort this out yet....

A few teaser photographs:

[Mad Manny]

Tick Tock....

[grips]

Looks Lekker

[Redman]

3 weeks later... If I did not see the Patrol in the one pic I would have sworn Ian took a Ford Ranger overlanding and is still stuck there?

[Mad Manny]

He has been busy....


... fighting with a bad plumber...


... on Farcebook....

[Disco Nic]

He has been busy....


... fighting with a bad plumber...


... on Farcebook....

I knew you were full of crap, but I didn’t realize you were into plumbing these days.

[jakeslouw]

I knew you were full of crap, but I didn’t realize you were into plumbing these days.

Manny has been known to enjoy a good plunging.

[Mad Manny]

I'm not a Plumber, but I can lay pipe...

[iandvl]

I am sorry. I've been stuck with some serious issues I've had to resolve. And plumbing nonsense in between as well... I'm on dead line for a report too, so this week is out. But I believe I'll have a chance over the weekend.

Also: Note to Jakes. I'm camping at Moegatle this weekend and a few other folks (Rechardt, Hedgehog, et-al) are also in the area. We're planning on stopping by on Sunday on the way back. Please ensure the beer is cold...

[jakeslouw]

Beer is always cold, and the F1 is on the telly as well.

I love seeing that little whiner in his Merc get humiliated by Verstappen.

[iandvl]

Sooo. Let's get this started...

Work knows I like cruising around and I tend to try and grab most of the SADC projects. So I was recently assigned to a project at a mine up in North Eastern Lesotho...

I've been in Lesotho on various occasions, but most of my trips have been in the North West with the exception of a few trips up and down Sani. On the occasions I've done Sani, it has always been straight up, spend the night, and then straight down again. Also, I've had a love-hate relationship with that pass. Sani is weird. You get it on a good day and you wonder what the fuss is. The last time I drove it (prior to this trip) was a week or two after serious snowfalls closed most of Lesotho, and so when we tackled it it was completely iced up. I'm dead serious - we almost died on the way down. The only thing one can do in scenarios like that is to try and control the slide so that your truck's ass does not swing past the nose. And to try and not fall off the mountain on the hairpin bends... There is a recent video posted by Snow Report on Vleisbroek showing a cruiser battling with this sort of thing. The link, for your watchingness, is here: https://fb.watch/m0xafFcTto/

In any case, I had some demons to exorcise with Sani pass and Liana had never been to Lesotho, so we decided to take a tour down to Lesotho, do Sani, look for some snow. And then on the Sunday she could fly back from Pietermaritzburg and I'd head back to the mine... And so we did.

We took a few days to drive down. Itinierary was:

Day 1: Pretoria -> Clarens
Day 2: Clarens -> Himeville
Day 3: Himeville -> Sani Top
Day 4: Sani Top -> Pietermaritzburg -> Sani Top
Day 5: Sani Top -> Letseng
Day X: Letseng -> Pretoria

Day X being undefined as it would depend on the day I finished my project.

It's been an interesting trip. A list of the passes done during this trip are as follows:

ZA - Lichen Pass
ZA - Oliviershoek Pass
ZA - Lower Lotheni "Passes"
ZA - Sani Pass Up
ZA - Sani Pass Down
ZA - Sani Pass Up
LS - Kotsiphela Pass (Black Mountain Pass)
LS - Tlaeeng Pass
LS - Khalo La Lithunya (Pass of Guns)
LS - Mahlasel Pass
LS - Moteng Pass

Day 1 : Pretoria -> Clarens

Not much to say about this. We took the generic drive which was Pretoria, through Joeys on the N3, exiting the N3 at Villiers and then Frankfort -> Tweeling -> Bethlehem -> Clarens. Nothing much to report on. Road is all fine except around Tweeling, where Bogans like Desmond (I think his forum nickname is "malkoppie") have really stuffed up the road. A very long stretch is under repair and you drive on the dirt next to the road.

Arriving in Clarens, we checked into a chalet called "The View". Awesome spot. It's on the Northern border of the town. Thereafter, we had a few beers at various spots around town before having dinner at the Grouse and Claret.

Heading home, we got a fire burning in the hearth / woodstove thing in the chalet. Really nothing much further to report...

[iandvl]

Day 2 : Clarens -> Himeville

The second day saw us pack the truck, check out, refuel and take the Clarens -> Harrismith road via Golden Gate - ie: The R712. Passed through Golden Gate - which brought back a ton of memories. We often hiked there when I was younger. Entered the Lichen Pass.

Shortly before Harrismith, we turned off on the R74 which runs on the Eastern side of the Sterkfontein dam. Travelled along this. Stopped to see "Kerkenberg", where Piet Retief's daughter painted his name on a rock during the Great Trek. I didn't realise this before planning the trip, but on the dirt road shortly before Kerkenberg, there is a turn off to "Retief's Pass" - which is where the "Kaalvoetvrou" monument is. If I had realised this I would have worked in time to see this. But it gives me an excuse to make a trip out this way again one day... Cruised down Oliviershoek pass. At this point, my GPS acted up. I had been planning on taking a dirt track through the Natal Midlands I have taken on prior Sani expeditions... But will a malfunctioning GPS, I opted to stick on the known roads. So we did Bergville -> Winterton -> N3 down to Nottingham road. From Nottingham road, we took the Lower Lotheni road - which is a spectacular dirt road through the Drakensberg foothills with some fairly epic "passes".

We arrived in Himeville in the PM, had a drink at the Himeville Arms and then checked in at the Sani Lodge Back Packers - where we would be staying for the night - and braaied some sosaats for supper.

[Woolf]

DVR's base camp for his Drakensberg tours is situated at Kerkenberg

[iandvl]

Day 3 : Himeville -> Sani Top

Day 3 saw us rise bright and early to pack the truck and have a cup of coffee. After this, we drove the few kilometres of tar road down to the ZA border post. I last travelled this road back in 2018, I think. It has been resurfaced and the gabions on the side of the road have been replaced. All the little interesting bits and places to see have been nicely sign-posted. I am really impressed with the amount of work that has gone into the stretch of road leading up to the ZA border post.

Clearing customs was quick and painless and, as everybody who has done Sani before knows, the first starts as soon as you've passed the ZA border post.

The starts of the pass is a little rough at the moment - it is much smoother once one hits the switch backs. But I think it had not been graded for a while when we did it. Since weather was good, driving the pass was no sweat and then we were at the top. Cleared customs and paid the ZAR80 road tax before we had the traditional quart of Maluti beer at the "Highest Pub in Africa". It is apparently not the highest pub in Africa, but I've forgotten where I've read that and where or what is the name of the place that actually really is, so let's just leave that there.

There were reports of snow about 10km in, so we took a leisurely drive and found a bit of old snow. And then we returned to the Sani Top lodge for lunch...

Took a walk around the Sani flats, checked into the Back Packers where we would be staying the evening and had soup for dinner - along with a few beers. Since we were the only people staying in the back packers that evening, we dragged a mattress into the sitting room and slept in front of the fire.

[iandvl]

Day 4 : Sani Top -> Pietermaritzburg -> Sani Top

I had quite a bit of driving ahead this day, so we were up bright and early. Cleared customs at Lesotho border post and drove down Sani. Liana was *very* quiet on the way down... From there drove to Pietermaritzburg, dropped Liana off at the airport and headed back - arriving at the foot of the pass around 14h00. Got to the top, had the traditional Maluti and then checked in at the back backers on my own for the evening.

Oh - the cable tie on the glasses. I broke the frame the previous day. The super glue I had with me did not stick it up and, considering I need the glasses to drive, I made a plan...

This ends part 1 of the trip. The following day would see me head out to Letseng via the Blackmountain Pass and the start of the Tlaeng Pass. I will write up about that when I have a chance.