Day 32, Year 6 Out of Kruger, Into the Mountains
Date: Thursday, November 25, 2010
Weather: Overcast, Foggy Mist in the Afternoon
Location: Graskop, Mapumalanga, South Africa
Happy Thanksgiving! We are eating at a Portuguese-Mozambican restaurant tonight, so no turkey for us. We are just going to have to wait until Christmas this year to have turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. Ed and Lynne are eating at a different restaurant, so it is going to be a lonely Thanksgiving dinner. Holidays are hard for us out here without family and friends, but we are thinking of you and missing all of you so much. We’ll spend our evening talking about all the things we have to be thankful for, and that list is very long.
We left Satara Camp in Kruger at 6 am and drove for about two hours to get out of the park. We saw our last giraffe family with mama, papa, two teenagers, and the smallest giraffe baby we have seen. That was the highlight of our exit drive. We saw loads of impala mothers with babies, more than usual, and that was also special. But for the most part we drove through yellow-grass savannah country sprinkled with trees here and there and saw very little in the way of wildlife. We had hoped to see more lions, but that was not in the mix this morning. Seeing Leo and company last night would be a hard act to follow, and we are just grateful for all the wonderful sightings we did have in our three and half days in the park.
Upon exiting the park, we entered the Limpopo province for a short time and then drove into Mpumalanga province headed for the Blyde River Canyon. The Drakensberg Mountains run from the center of the country up to this area. The Blyde River Canyon is the third largest in the world and the largest green canyon. This area of the Drakensberg Mountains known as the Drakensberg Escarpment is home to some of South Africa’s most striking landscapes. At one time the whole area was untamed rainforest that provided a home for elephants, buffalo, and lions. But today when we climbed the mountain, we found huge gently sloping areas with commercial farming and towns, and closer to Graskop at the southern end, tree farms forever. Everything was so green and beautiful with the spectacular rock outcroppings surrounding the central flat lands We were going to stop to see Echo Cave on our way into the park, but when we got there and found out the shortest tour was 45 minutes, we decided to skip it. The clouds were looking ugly and we felt like we needed to get to some of the spectacular viewpoints while we could still see them. Our first stop was to see the Three Rondavels. A rondavel is a round African hut with a conical roof, or sometimes with a rounded beehive roof. At this overlook, we saw enormous rounds of rock with pointed and rounded grassy tops like the conical and beehive tops of rondavels. The Blyde River was rushing deep in the canyon and the Blyde River Dam has provided a meandering lake. The views of this were just spectacular. Our next stop was at Bourke’s Luck Potholes. These are cylindrical holes that have been carved into the rock by the whirlpools of water at the confluence of two rivers, the Blyde and the Treuer. Thomas Bourke, director of the Traansvaal Gold Mining Estate in the 1880’s, bought two farms in the present day area where the ‘potholes’ are found. Due to his presence in the area, the name stuck. We walked out to the confluence of the two rivers and found the deep cylindrical potholes in the bedrock of the river to be absolutely fascinating. This area is the start of the Blyde River Canyon. From here we drove to two different waterfalls, Berlin Falls and Lisbon Falls, and then on to a viewpoint called God’s Window. Unfortunately, God must have pulled down the blinds on his window today. The misty fog had rolled in and totally blocked any views. But luckily, we drove a short distance down the main road and found an overlook where we could see the Lowveld (low lands at the bottom of the mountain) just under a curtain of thick fog. Our next stop was to see the Pinnacle which looks like a rocky skyscraper. By this time it was late afternoon, so we headed to Graskop. This is a cute little town that gets loads of tourists and bikers who are doing high altitude training. We drove through town to see a natural rock bridge on the other side, but it was low and covered with grass-not much to look at. We then checked into the Graskop Hotel. It is not much to look at on the outside, but is a work of art on the inside. You have a choice of an art room or a garden room. We chose the garden room and we were delighted. Our room was decorated with art with antelope fur rugs on the floors. The French doors leading from our sitting room led out to a fabulous garden area with raised beds and sitting areas. The cost was the same as our accommodations in Kruger, which were nice, but this was REALLY nice. It was a lovely way to end our wildlife and sightseeing adventure in northern South Africa.
Note: Lance and Carla Gibson are the owners of Canimambo, the restaurant specializing in Portuguese and Mozambican food where we had dinner. We learned by reading the menu that in 2000 Lance was diagnosed with Dystonia. That made us think of Garrett Stuart, the son of good friends Linda and Michael Stuart, who also has Dystonia. Garrett will graduate from high school this year and loves to travel. I could just see him flying to South Africa to meet Lance and Carla. Lance and Carla were away on Holiday but their eighteen-year old son was running the restaurant and shared his father’s story with us.
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| 101125 Day 32a South Africa–Kruger Day 5 |
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| 101125 Day 32b South Africa–Blyde River Canyon to Graskop |
