Mpumalanga, near the Kruger National Park

Hello Everybody,

Yesterday I posted the Pakistan trip, not the one I promised. Here is the one I promised albeit almost one day late. This is as a result of me not having access to the pics on my camera earlier (misplaced connection cable!). I trust you can forgive me.

The trip to Mpumalanga's Panorama Route was precipitated by a visit to us by our daughter over 2013 Christmas season. We then offered to share her car back to her workplace in the Mpumalanga highlands for two reason: It would help her share the driving and the good wife and I could have a cheap holiday in another part of our beautiful country.

Call us the family cheap but we had a great time ... One does not always have to spend lots of cash or credit to experience beautiful places.

First we shacked up at our daughter's place in Kriel. Kriel is situated in the energy producing belt of the Mpumalanga Highlands and has two Escom power stations, Kriel and Matla in close proximity. Our daughter is employed at Matla as resident civil engineer. This rural station is far removed from the glitz and glamour of Cape Town where she completed her studies but God's plan in our lives has a goodly purpose.

We planned to take her to the eastern part of the province in which she works - the lowveld near the Kruger National Park (KNP). The excellent N4 highway to Maputo runs through Nelspruit, and we planned to turn off from there to Hazyview (closest South African town to the Kruger National Park). I used the internet to book a place near Hazyview and we had no trouble getting there. Funnily enough my daughter also bought a Ford as her first car. Not a Beast, mind you, but the best selling small car model in the country, the Figo. So, with our daughter's permission, we used the Figo on our travels and she (the car, that is) behaved excellently!

First we had to find and book into a place that was off the beaten track and required the use of a dirt road to get there! This was not specifically mentioned on the website but the road there was passable and the directions easy. I found it even after a disagreement with my daughter's Garmin. You see, I look the route up on Google maps and memorised it so, when Garmin had other ideas, I insisted we switch the gadget off and depended on my memory. This last part did not enamour me to my daughter, a great fan of her #Garmin.

Long story short, Google Maps and my memory beat Garmin to a pulp and even my daughter had to acknowledge that. We found the most wonderful place hidden a few kilometres from Hazy View called Haus Kopatsch. The on-site owners provided genuine German hospitality, support, friendliness and cleanliness. It was the best choice I've made without copious amounts of background research. We were close to God's Window and the other sights of the Panorama Route and we had a swimming pool to ourselves to frolic in. We were also a few kilometres from the nearest Kruger National Park gate but that was not the object of our holiday. I only wanted to see the Blyde River Canyon - I've already been to the Masai Mara in Southern Kenya, so I had not need of the Big Five. I was not selfish because I clearly indicated my holiday objective before we started to my good wife and daughter and there were no additional requests or alternate suggestions.

The next day we decided to go to God's Window (so named because the view is said to be so breath-taking that God himself would sit there and admire his fantastic handiwork!!! I initially thought it was blasphemous to call a place that but I went up and saw it and nearly fell on my back. Here is a snippet, which unfortunately does not do the full view justice:

A view from the irreverently named "God's Window"

From God's Window we visited Bourke's Pot Luck and the Berlin Water Falls immediately after that. Nothing funny happened along the way but the views are worth seeing:

Bourke's Pot Luck

PrettyDaughter@ImpressiveBerlinFalls 

We also visited the much talked-about Pilgrim's Rest - one of the last gold mining outposts in the former Eastern Transvaal. One can do an actual gold panning expedition near the town but my family restricted my lust for finding great clumps of aluvial gold, so I never got a chance!

I insisted on going via the Long Tom Pass. The last place where the Boers positioned their artillery during the Anglo-Boer War (ABW not AWB!)

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Seeing the famous Long Tom cannon was one of my objectives along the Panorama Route and I was surprised to also find the highest beer micro brewery ("Hops Hollow") on the R37 between Sabie and Lydenburg near there ... the brewery was also a pub and a high-spec motel as can be seen from these pics:

A well-appointed bedroom at Hops Hollow

Beer hall at Hops Hollow

One finds these gems hidden all over our countryside but I was really surprised by the enterprise of the Mpumalanga people. Definitely a place to visit, even if one skips Kruger National Park (and I do not recommend you do that on purpose, simply that there is much else to amuse and interest one).

Obviously the fly-fishermen will ask about Dullstroom and, yes, we passed through this town as well, as you will see from the next pic.

OldTrancvaalInn@Dullstroom

Here I sign off and I hope you will find the post useful on your travels.

Keep travelling!
Ron