South Africa: Greytown to Kokstad, via Drakensberg & Sani Pass into Lesotho.

Sunday 12th July: Greytown to Drakensberg Mountains, Lesotho & Kokstad. We left Greytown at 8.45 am and headed for the nearby Town of Mooi River. That was our gateway into the World Heritage Site of uKhalamba Drakensberg Park.

We travelled right into the Highmoor Park and then worked our way along the length of the uKhahlamba Park until we came to the Sani Pass. This is the road that takes you from South Africa into the Kingdom of Lesotho. Lesotho is a sovereign country whose geographical boundary lies completely within South Africa. This is termed an enclave country and I discover that there are only 3 such enclaves in the world; The Vatican in Rome, San Marino in Italy and of course Lesotho in South Africa. OK, only San Marino left to do. As there was no sign of the forecast snow, especially knowing the reputation of this pass as being quite treacherous, we set off to visit the highest pub in Africa, the San Top. As we arrived at the South African border post we found that it was still 8 kms from that point and inside Lesotho. I was told it would take an hour to get up the pass from there.

Here is what Wikipedia writes about it " Sani Pass is a route that connects Kwazulu-Natal and Lesotho. It is a notoriously dangerous road, which requires the use of a 4x4 vehicle and above average driving experience. It has occasional remains of vehicles that did not succeed in navigating its steep gradients and poor traction surfaces, and has a catalogue of frightening stories of failed attempts at ascending the path over the Northern Lesotho mountains. While South African immigration at the bottom of pass prohibits vehicles deemed unsuitable for the journey, the Lesotho border agents at the top generally allow vehicles of all types to attempt the descent. The Pass is often closed due to weather conditions, especially during winter. "

Bad as the pass was before the border post, it now deteriorated into a pile of rocks and holes. Sometimes, you’d imagine it impassable.

 


The scenery was absolutely stunning, the climb quite hair-raising most of the way. The wheels were grabbing on lumps of rock and gravel, always looking for grip. Suddenly we were driving on lumps of ice as it was so cold up there. On one switchback bend the road was iced over with a big lump of ice, right on the bend.

That was rather interesting because on the way down, the drop the other side was thousands of feet. We eventually got to the Lesotho border post & we were through in a few minutes.

The Pub was just a few hundred metres away, and a few metres higher too. We met the owner who built it back in 1994 and he was most welcoming & informative. We were in Lesotho but light would be fading in 90 minutes so it was a quick drink. A local beer for John & a coffee for me.

We bade farewell & had our passports stamped out of Lesotho and then started the long trek back to the border post of South Africa, 8kms away.

Were we the quickest ever visitors to a country, as we only stayed 30 minutes. Probably not, by a long margin. It was pretty hair raising going down, and once we'd negotiated the icy bend with the big drop, we could relax a bit. Naturally, we were in low range drive for the entire round trip. Once back through the SA border post, the road was still very bad but further down it began to improve so we made a bit better pace.

Back on the main road, we set our sights on Kokstad, about 165 kms away. The road was excellent as well as being quiet so we got there by about 7.30pm. It took a while to find rooms as most places seemed full and then we found The Kilimanjaro Guest House. It sure was a long way back to Kilimanjaro. There seemed to be only 2 choices of where to eat in town on a Sunday night, KFC & Nandos. Nandos is a fast food place with a Portuguese flavour of Peri Peri sauce on everything so we opted for that.

Kilimanjaro Guest House Kokstad

It was too late to eat inside as the seating area was shut down so we ordered our take away & it was delivered to us in our car outside within 15 minutes. We returned to the guesthouse and I raided the kitchen for plates and cutlery. We also got to see a rerun of the Formula 1 grand prix that took place earlier in the day so John & I were really pleased with that. Bed was later than usual at almost midnight.