Trip Report - Roof of Africa

[iandvl]

Please watch this space. I'm busy typing as we go.

I normally start with a GPS map of my trips, but I've not even had a chance to sort this out yet....

A few teaser photographs:

ls5.jpg (64.11 KiB) Viewed 1502 times

[Steele]

looking forward to it!

[iandvl]

Sooo. Let's get this started...

Work knows I like cruising around and I tend to try and grab most of the SADC projects. So I was recently assigned to a project at a mine up in North Eastern Lesotho...

I've been in Lesotho on various occasions, but most of my trips have been in the North West with the exception of a few trips up and down Sani. On the occasions I've done Sani, it has always been straight up, spend the night, and then straight down again. Also, I've had a love-hate relationship with that pass. Sani is weird. You get it on a good day and you wonder what the fuss is. The last time I drove it (prior to this trip) was a week or two after serious snowfalls closed most of Lesotho, and so when we tackled it it was completely iced up. I'm dead serious - we almost died on the way down. The only thing one can do in scenarios like that is to try and control the slide so that your truck's ass does not swing past the nose. And to try and not fall off the mountain on the hairpin bends... There is a recent video posted by Snow Report on Vleisbroek showing a cruiser battling with this sort of thing. The link, for your watchingness, is here:



In any case, I had some demons to exorcise with Sani pass and Liana had never been to Lesotho, so we decided to take a tour down to Lesotho, do Sani, look for some snow. And then on the Sunday she could fly back from Pietermaritzburg and I'd head back to the mine... And so we did.

We took a few days to drive down. Itinierary was:

Day 1: Pretoria -> Clarens
Day 2: Clarens -> Himeville
Day 3: Himeville -> Sani Top
Day 4: Sani Top -> Pietermaritzburg -> Sani Top
Day 5: Sani Top -> Letseng
Day X: Letseng -> Pretoria

Day X being undefined as it would depend on the day I finished my project.

Day 1 : Pretoria -> Clarens

Day01.png (227.76 KiB) Viewed 1318 times

Not much to say about this. We took the generic drive which was Pretoria, through Joeys on the N3, exiting the N3 at Villiers and then Frankfort -> Tweeling -> Bethlehem -> Clarens. Nothing much to report on. Road is all fine except around Tweeling, where Bogans like Desmond have really stuffed up the road. A very long stretch is under repair and you drive on the dirt next to the road.

Arriving in Clarens, we checked into a chalet called "The View". Awesome spot. It's on the Northern border of the town. Thereafter, we had a few beers at various spots around town before having dinner at the Grouse and Claret.

Heading home, we got a fire burning in the hearth / woodstove thing in the chalet. Really nothing much further to report...

[iandvl]

Day 2 : Clarens -> Himeville

Day02.png (268.99 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

The second day saw us pack the truck, check out, refuel and take the Clarens -> Harrismith road via Golden Gate - ie: The R712. Passed through Golden Gate - which brought back a ton of memories. We often hiked there when I was younger. Entered the Lichen Pass.

Shortly before Harrismith, we turned off on the R74 which runs on the Eastern side of the Sterkfontein dam. Travelled along this. Stopped to see "Kerkenberg", where Piet Retief's daughter painted his name on a rock during the Great Trek. I didn't realise this before planning the trip, but on the dirt road shortly before Kerkenberg, there is a turn off to "Retief's Pass" - which is where the "Kaalvoetvrou" monument is. If I had realised this I would have worked in time to see this. But it gives me an excuse to make a trip out this way again one day... Cruised down Oliviershoek pass. At this point, my GPS acted up. I had been planning on taking a dirt track through the Natal Midlands I have taken on prior Sani expeditions... But will a malfunctioning GPS, I opted to stick on the known roads. So we did Bergville -> Winterton -> N3 down to Nottingham road. From Nottingham road, we took the Lower Lotheni road - which is a spectacular dirt road through the Drakensberg foothills with some fairly epic "passes".

We arrived in Himeville in the PM, had a drink at the Himeville Arms and then checked in at the Sani Lodge Back Packers - where we would be staying for the night - and braaied some sosaats for supper.

01.jpg (378.48 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

02.jpg (646.64 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

03.jpg (633.8 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

04.jpg (469.15 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

05.jpg (528.86 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

06.jpg (429.5 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

07.jpg (393 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

08.jpg (384.79 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

[iandvl]

Day 3 : Himeville -> Sani Top

Day03.png (373.17 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

Day 3 saw us rise bright and early to pack the truck and have a cup of coffee. After this, we drove the few kilometres of tar road down to the ZA border post. I last travelled this road back in 2018, I think. It has been resurfaced and the gabions on the side of the road have been replaced. All the little interesting bits and places to see have been nicely sign-posted. I am really impressed with the amount of work that has gone into the stretch of road leading up to the ZA border post.

Clearing customs was quick and painless and, as everybody who has done Sani before knows, the first starts as soon as you've passed the ZA border post.

The starts of the pass is a little rough at the moment - it is much smoother once one hits the switch backs. But I think it had not been graded for a while when we did it. Since weather was good, driving the pass was no sweat and then we were at the top. Cleared customs and paid the ZAR80 road tax before we had the traditional quart of Maluti beer at the "Highest Pub in Africa". It is apparently not the highest pub in Africa, but I've forgotten where I've read that and where or what is the name of the place that actually really is, so let's just leave that there.

There were reports of snow about 10km in, so we took a leisurely drive and found a bit of old snow. And then we returned to the Sani Top lodge for lunch...

Took a walk around the Sani flats, checked into the Back Packers where we would be staying the evening and had soup for dinner - along with a few beers. Since we were the only people staying in the back packers that evening, we dragged a mattress into the sitting room and slept in front of the fire. :)

01.jpg (417.82 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

02.jpg (554.22 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

03.jpg (520.87 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

04.jpg (413.77 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

05.jpg (579.68 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

06.jpg (500.27 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

07.jpg (406.14 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

08.jpg (508.46 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

09.jpg (515.84 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

10.jpg (316.5 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

11.jpg (530.34 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

12.jpg (362.97 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

13.jpg (610.72 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

14.jpg (528.03 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

15.jpg (399.99 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

16.jpg (330.2 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

17.jpg (401.17 KiB) Viewed 1309 times

[iandvl]

Day 4 : Sani Top -> Pietermaritzburg -> Sani Top

I had quite a bit of driving ahead this day, so we were up bright and early. Cleared customs at Lesotho border post and drove down Sani. Liana was *very* quiet on the way down... From there drove to Pietermaritzburg, dropped Liana off at the airport and headed back - arriving at the foot of the pass around 14h00. Got to the top, had the traditional Maluti and then checked in at the back backers on my own for the evening.

Oh - the cable tie on the glasses. I broke the frame the previous day. The super glue I had with me did not stick it up and, considering I need the glasses to drive, I made a plan... :D :D

01.jpg (323.83 KiB) Viewed 1308 times

02.jpg (350.45 KiB) Viewed 1308 times

This ends part 1 of the trip. The following day would see me head out to Letseng via the Blackmountain Pass and the start of the Tlaeng Pass. I will write up about that when I have a chance.

[Peter Connan]

As always, great trip report Ian!

... the traditional quart of Maluti beer at the "Highest Pub in Africa". It is apparently not the highest pub in Africa, but I've forgotten where I've read that and where or what is the name of the place that actually really is, so let's just leave that there.

I think it may have been me. As far as I know the highest pub is at Afriski, not far from where I suspect you were working. They actually have several pubs on the grounds, all higher than Sani Top.

[iandvl]

I think it may have been me. As far as I know the highest pub is at Afriski, not far from where I suspect you were working.

Yes - I have gathered this in the meantime. I drove past Afriski on the way back. That part of the report is still upcoming... :)

[iandvl]

Day 5 : Sani Top -> Letseng

Day05.png (114.2 KiB) Viewed 1252 times

Got up early and had sips of of coffee in between packing up the truck. Checked out and headed out into the Lesotho hinterland. The little patches of snow we'd found the previous day are at the start of the Kotsiphela Pass (Black Mountain pass). According to Mountain Passes ZA, this is a "Mega pass". It's 32km, has a summit of 3244m and "consists of 139 bends. Eight of these have angles in excess of 90 degrees and of those, six are hairpin bends". It is super pretty, but I did not have much time for photos as I was driving and needed to clock in for work that morning. There was also quite a lot of ice on the road, so my full focus was required on driving....

I shall digress for a bit. I'm not a fan of the "neo-colonialism" thing the Chinese are pulling in Africa. However, that road recently built by the Chinese, is a master piece. We'll see how it holds up over time as the condition of the A1 (also built by them) is not awesome these days. But... that road is awesome... :)

I turned North onto the A1 shortly before Mokhotlong and continued on my journey, eventually reaching Mapholaneng.

Mapholaneng marks (I think) the start of the Tlaeng pass - which is apparently Africa's highest driveable pass. From there I continued through to Letseng - where I would be staying for the next couple of days.

At Letseng, it took a while to clear security as I had to document every single little thing in my vehicle. Tools, spares, fridges, tents etc... But eventually I got in and I wasted the rest of the day doing medical, induction etc. It was snowing when I arrived, but I was too busy with admin to be able to take any photos or enjoy it much...

Photos are the tail end of the Black Mountain Pass just after Mokhotlong, my quarters and my Patrol's quarters for the next while.

On a side note: Lesotho is bitterly cold in the Winter - it took my truck about 70km to get to normal operating temperature after leaving Sani top...

01.jpg (389.67 KiB) Viewed 1252 times

02.jpg (377.26 KiB) Viewed 1252 times

03.jpg (342.7 KiB) Viewed 1252 times

04.jpg (287.16 KiB) Viewed 1252 times

05.jpg (334.92 KiB) Viewed 1252 times

[iandvl]

Day Various: Hanging at Letseng and Some Urgent Excursions

Day07.png (111 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

So there I was - working at Letseng. The weather is super variable - ranging from wet, to sunny, to snow and similar, all in the space of a few hours... Also: it is as cold as my ex-wife's heart, and when the wind pumps, it pumps. Had one evening where it was -18 with windchill, and the wind was pumping at 96km/h... Also had snow on various days. They blasted regularly, but I was always too late to get a video. You'll see one of the photos with dust rising from the pits following a blast... Blasting is super impressive....

I ran into a little bit of a snag - I found out after arriving - that the mine works on a cash basis only... And my cigarettes etc would not make the week. I had noticed several ATM's in Mapholaneng on my way there, but I was loathe to take the drive...

My original plan was to refuel in Butha Buthe on the way home. And Mapholaneng would be a 70km round trip... And I was not sure whether I'd make Butha Buthe from Letseng if I opted to take the drive.... However, addiction is a horrible thing... I ended up taking the drive, but also found a petrol station in Mapholaneng. So I was guaranteed of making it back home... :)

Apart from that, the truck was covered in ice and snow when not in use. One of the highlights for me was bumping into fellow ex-Patroller, Grant, on my second-last night there. I did not know he worked there....

Anyways, work went on. Not much time to get around and see stuff. But it was pretty. And it was cold... Wrapped up my project on the father's day and packed all my bags on that Sunday. I'd be leaving the next morning (I thought)...

02.jpg (334.15 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

03.jpg (455.56 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

04.jpg (437.32 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

06.jpg (389.95 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

07.jpg (408.56 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

08.jpg (413.4 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

09.jpg (352.57 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

10.jpg (364.22 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

11.jpg (411.93 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

12.jpg (251.81 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

13.jpg (255.91 KiB) Viewed 1247 times

14.jpg (253.44 KiB) Viewed 1247 times