Sani Pass, South Africa

Have included a photo of the last cook up with our old optimus at Giant's Castle.

Drove the incredibly dusty, rocky, bumpy road known as Nottingham Road. There was not much along the road as there were miles and miles of eucalyptus forest and some pine.

Passed through a few small towns and here is a postbox stand that can be seen in many of the small towns.This one is in pretty good condition but some of them have been vandalised or burnt and unusable. Lots of the formal settlements have numbers stencilled onto the walls of the houses to identify them from informal settlements.

Saw lots of women carrying long branches on their heads which they use for firewood or to construct the walls of their houses. A frame of flexible saplings is made then filled with small rocks and finally this is all daubed with mud or mud and dung.

As we drove down to Underberg from Nottingham Road we passed several dairy farms and most of them seemed to be owned by members of the Watson family as the nameplates on the gates informed us. The farms were huge with dams and some green grass which was a noticeable difference to the scenery we had travelled to this point. It was easy to tell the farms were owned by white farmers because there were exotic trees lining the driveways and along some of the fencelines. Although there were no leaves on the trees they still looked beautiful all spaced equally and provided a nice view from the monotony of the forests and dry brown grass hills.

We stopped at Underberg to buy some supplies. It seems a popular place for people from Pietermaritzberg to have a holiday house. There were several blocks of new shopping centres and even one that had been finished but not tenanted was up for sale. Many of the streets had B & Bs or guesthouses and there were several eating and drinking places. It certainly had a holiday feeling about the place.

We had originally wanted to go up the Sani Pass which has the border post to Lesotho but as Lil's new passport has not arrived we will try to go to Lesotho later. However we booked into a lodge at the start of the pass and spent some time there looking at it and hiking around the area. It was pretty cold being so high up and we were supplied with hot water bottles to keep us warm in the night.

Looking towards Sani Pass and Lesotho.

While on a hike we came over a rise to see this well dressed man with a trilby style hat, suit jacket and trousers, wearing highly polished brown leather dress shoes. He was carrying a tartan patterned suitcase. He was sitting on a rock eating his lunch of flat bread wrapped in newspaper. We didn't expect such a scene in the middle of nowhere and as he didn't speak any English we were unable to chat to find out his story.

There were lots of hiking trails starting at the lodge and like all backpackers here they also run tour offices. We could have done a 4 day horse trek into Lesotho to stay in a local village, or 4x4 tours, river rafting (in season), as well as any combination of the above.

The lodge also had a dairy business making cheese and yoghurt and we got fresh milk everyday. They also ran a 'tea garden' which we would call a coffee shop or cafe. From this they sold home made produce in jars, cakes and biscuits, dried meats, and trout. You could also buy several African crafts. This lizard made from wire was covered in beads and used as a wall light.

It was a nice place by the fire in the evenings to chat to other travelers and get information on places we want to go to. We met a French family who have invited us to visit them if we make it to France. The couple had been traveling with their 9 year old daughter for 7 months. Most of the travelers here were French as well.