Looping Lesotho

The end of November saw us revisiting the Drakensberg for a couple of days with my folks, Lisa, Fabrice and little Jesse. It's a lengthy trip from where we are so we decided to make the most of it by doing a bit of a road trip on the way there and back. The drive to the berg was fairly easy. We spent the night between Steynsberg and Middleberg, at Hillston Farm, pretty much slap bang in the middle of nowhere. We left the next morning as the sun popped up and travelled up the Western border of Lesotho, through the booming but yuppified Clarens and across the Golden Gate National Park.

The berg was great as usual. There was a touch of golf, a great hike, a fair amount of taking it easy and lots of eating. Our drive home was were it became a little more challenging. We drove down to Mooi River and then cut across the midlands, where we jumped on a roller-coaster of a dirt road that took us all the way to Himeville. With all of the wheels attached, and most of the vehicle still in tact, we continued on to Swartberg and the farm where my mom grew up. She hasn't been there for donkey's years but after being invited in and having some coffee with a few of the locals we learnt a bit about the families of the area and got to have a look around the old farm house. We continued on to Mount Fletcher and McClair, where we discovered that the pass we planned travelling over was out of the question. This meant we had a two and a half hour detour through Barkley East and then a final push along a really tricky dirt road in the dark and with the added comfort of torrential rain. We arrived in Rhodes at around 8h30 and sat down to a meal at our little lodge. Jacks got a chicken schnitzel that somehow passed as being the vegetarian option and I tucked into a piece of steak that was pretty good. We spent the next day wandering around the tiny town and the surrounding hills and had another night at the lodge, this time with self-designed pizzas.

Early the next morning we drove along the same pass to Barkley East, this time enjoying the fact that we could actually see where we were going and what was around us. Through Queenstown and Graaff-Reneit we made our way to Nieu-Bethesda, where we decided to spend another night. Our first impression wasn't brilliant. We popped in to a little restaurant that looked decent enough but we ended up being on the receiving end of a good ripping off. Jacks had a R40 salad that contained 2 chopped tomatoes and 6 olives. Luckily our next stop was the Sneeuberg Brewery where everything suddenly seemed OK after testing a few surprisingly good ales. We also got the key to their little guest house down the road and dropped all our stuff off before the compulsory parade around town. I phoned a lady I had heard about and booked for dinner at her house that sits up on the hill in the township that borders the town. Her place is known as 'Antie Evelyn se eet plek' and after arriving at around 7ish we met Evelyn and sat down at a table just outside her kitchen. The meal began with some popcorn and then we got stuck into 2 great salads and some home-baked bread. This was washed down with a big jug of her zingy home-made ginger-ale. The best thing about the experience was just being part of the evenings activities in the little township. Kids playing, dogs running around madly, soft music and the peaceful hum of conversation. Jacks had some snoek and I had a massive chunk of deliciously tender lamb, along with potatoes, pumpkin, rice and a green bean and onion dish. I reckon that 6 people would have been more than satisfied with the amount of food prepared. If we weren't yet thoroughly stuffed a custard covered date pudding arrived to seal the deal. A real feast! If you're ever in Nieu-Bethesda make sure you visit Antie Evelynne. She really is a star!

We pulled away at around 6 the next morning and drove south to Uniondale and then down the Prince Albert Pass to Knysna. 3200km in total and a really great trip.