Hotel Marconi Underberg

... there was fantastic and the staff were really friendly! Murray clearly knew the owners really well so everyone looked after us well, plus he was quick to point out the locals who were just an annoyance. One guy who lurked underneath the porch, Murray explained he's just a pest where he was deaf and dumb (or least pretended to be both), and would hang around smokers so would wait for butts to be handed to him. Plus if you were ever to give him money, he'd snatch anything you ...

After Coffee Bay we traveled up to the Drakensburg Mountains, the highest mountain range in South Africa. The name means "Dragon Mountains" in Afrikaans, and in Zulu it is called uKhahlamb, meaning "barrier of Spears." The landscape is dramatic and beautiful, and the area offers all kinds of outdoor activities. The mountains border Lesotho, a landlocked country completely contained within South Africa. We had originally planned to spend a day in the ...

... rondavels, near the border. We sampled some fresh bread baked in a fire in a local home, along with some of the local brew, which could best be described as a thin, yoghurty cider, which probably doesn&#8217;t sound very pleasant, and it wasn&#8217;t. To get rid of the aftertaste we visited Sani Top Chalet, &#8216;The Highest Pub in Africa&#8217;, before heading back down the winding pass road to reach the border before it closed for the night. Four passport stamps in one day!<br>

Been a hell of a day! Having remade all the rooms after the mass exodus from the B&amp;B, I dusted off my camera,and headed of to Kenmo. I thought it would be an easy exersise, to take 4 photos of the Autumn colours, get back home, and stitch them together. Well, I got back home, and then realised the cam setting had changed to RAW, and the stitching program doesn't recognise RAW format. so....back into the4×4, to take the same ...

... open land into a forest at the bottom of the hill where the paintings are. Punctually a guide open the door and gave us a very good tour around these more than 2000 years old artefact's of the early San people population, the last addition goes only back ...

... since this was the only entrance to the East side of Lesotho. I stand corrected! It was surprisingly pretty technical and Jaime kicked butt getting us to the top safely. She didn't have a lot of experience driving a manual(especially a right hand drive), and she had never driven in four wheel drive. I was really proud of her. At the top of the pass, we got stamped in and in easy going Lesotho fashion stamped out at ...

Jumped on SA Roadlink bus to Pietermaritzburg. Only R50, cheap for a 2 hours ride. At least for South African standards. Chewed on the billtong I bought in Namibia (Yacht Club in Luderitz), while watching the landscape passing by. The purple Jacaranda trees made the trip very enjoyable, they are really brigtening up the green foresty landscape. Pietermaritzburg (or PMB as the locals call it...or sometimes just Maritzburg ...

... better view of the area. It was rough riding, but worth it for the view! With afternoon aproaching, and a Rugby game to watch, we decided to head off down. With much less trafic, we were racing a bit, just for the thrill of if. Now, this might be time to add... My (far superior) Bike is a BMW 650 DAKAR - made for just this sort of rough riding... And Terence's bike (inferior) is a ...

... Surprisingly the ride on the Basotho ponies was very successful and we even got up to a trot and a canter without any incidents. WE went with a company called Khotso Horse Trails. The scenery was particularly nice and consisted of small hills of brown grass with the occasional acacia tree - one that was reputed to be one of the largest in Africa. The horse we took were ...

Welcome to the Drakensberg... do you like our weather? Well, if 3 degrees, wind, and rain works for you... then... That being said, Underberg and Himeville are quite pretty, even if the elusive Jonathan from Sani Top chalet had become... well, elusive, and our ambition of heading to Lesotho for Mayday got scuppered. A quick visit to the Himeville nature reserve cheered us up - well, there was a few antelope there - and then a goofy run off ...