Travel Diary: Drakensberg & Kruger Park

With a month and a bit of maintenance and upgrade jobs under our belt (last blog post) and a further month and bit until we needed to be in the Kruger Park, we headed off in the direction of the Drakensberg. September seems to be the month for us to head into the mountains, as almost exactly one year ago we found ourselves in the “berg” just as South Africa started to emerge from its hard lockdown period of COVID and was beginning to allow more freedom in local travel.

With plenty of time on our hands and thus not in any rush we only covered roughly 100km on our first day and stopped in a small campsite close to Wartburg. Upon arrival, there was only one other couple camping and so not wanting to intrude we parked Mr. Jones a fair way off and behind some bushes which in hindsight was a fantastic decision. A few minutes after settling in, the gentleman approached Stuart and with the greetings out the way began to tell Stuart that he could say “yes or no” and then stated he was a naturalist, being a bit slow at this point and not getting that in fact this was a question as to would we mind if he walked around with no kit on, Stuart responded with a “that’s nice” to which the gentleman replied once again you can say “yes or no”. At this point the penny dropped and being the nice people, we are, approval was given and we kept our eyes averted for the next couple of days….

Leaving Wartburg we headed across towards Howick and Karkloof for a stopover with the Macintoshes. Stuart mountain biked with Gavin & Rose nearly every weekend for over a decade and we hadn’t seen them since approximately 2018 so it was lovely catchup.

After leaving Karkloof we played “mainstream tourist” with a single night stopover in the heart of the midlands meander.

Having got our fill of touristy consumerism, we moved on to Kamberg for few nights and then followed this with a couple of very chilly days (a cold front swept through and temperatures rarely got above 5 degC) up at Highmoor campsite in the Southern Berg.

In 2020 we had wanted to visit Injasuthi but it was closed due to a massive wild fire that had ripped through the valley but with it now open it was our next stop on our slow drift northwards. Not wanting to drive all the way out from the berg and back in again we took a lovely gentle meander along the back roads and through forestry plantations as we cruised across to Injasuthi, it is nice not having big distances to cover and being able to take it real slow.

After five days at Injasuthi we hopped over to the next valley and Monks Cowl although our attempts at taking backroads and the most direct route ended in a number of dead-ends so ultimately our “hop” turned into a skip and hop as we first had to drive all the way out of the Injasuthi valley and then back up the Champagne Castle/Monks Cowl valley. A long weekend was approaching and having made no bookings in advance, we were hoping to secure a camping site on arrival for the full weekend and were rather disappointed when told this was not possible. On our second day we tried to secure a booking again, even telling the reception lady we were happy to move down to the bottom were there were no facilities but again we were turned down. With the arrival of the long weekend and associated crowds we were in fact happy we had not been successful in our earlier attempts as the little campsite become very crowded and noisy thus we happily packed up and left.

The challenge of course was going to be to find a place with room, so we decided to head away from the berg and towards Weenen Game reserve. Luck was on our side as we received the last available campsite upon our arrival.

Our goal from here onwards was to work our way up and across to the southern border of Kruger National Park where we were going to meetup with Stuarts folks in Marloth park but first we had the matter of his birthday to celebrate and a couple more weeks to kill. For his birthday we found a spot outside Dundee (Natal Battlefields area) which looked like it had a decent restaurant and would allow us a small treat. They did have a restaurant but as there were practically no guests, the menu options were limited and the atmosphere was nonexistent – you win some and you lose some.

We have always enjoyed spending time at spots that have hot mineral springs and so after Dundee we crossed the provincial border between KwaZulu Natal and Mpumalanga on our way to a resort called Badplaas (translated: bathing place or Bath farm). On the evening of our second day a huge thunderstorm rolled through which totally flooded all the mineral pools with mud and effectively shut the resort. As the only reason for us to be there was the pools and to use their laundry facilities, once the laundry was done we decided to move on and spend time in Kruger Park instead.

Unfortunately, all camping options in the southern portion of Kruger park were fully booked, we think because of school holidays, so after a zigzag route over a couple of days we ended up at an absolutely awesome spot called “Kiaat” just outside Hazyview and close to one of the Kruger gates. Over the course of the next 7 days we made a number of excursions into Kruger Park with some wonderful sightings including a Leopard which we got to enjoy all by ourselves. Even better, was the news that South Africa had been lifted off the UK Red list for travel which meant the long-awaited holiday for Devon and Hannah could go ahead as planned for Christmas.

After a week at Kiaat we moved a bit further South to Marloth Park in order to spend the next two weeks with Stuart’s folks. A lovely two weeks followed with a simple routine of occasional game drives in Kruger, swims in the afternoon and evening meals together to catchup and share memories.

All too soon the 2 weeks were over and it was time to head for Johannesburg, ourselves included, as we had a long list of jobs and shopping we wanted to get done in the “big smoke”. We did however take our time in getting there by breaking the 5 hour trip with a night at “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe” – a climbing area Stuart frequented in the 1990’s and where he often dreamt of living out of a van while travelling between climbing destinations.