We set off on our travels in a hired Corolla manual on the 7^th  Jan packed to the rafters with and esky, a box of food and camping gear, charcoal, cameras, two suitcases and so on. We soon discovered the value of Ann’s suggestion of dividing our clothes so we only need to take out one suitcase when we stop.  As she also suggested, we have far too many clothes! Using a limited number of clothes and rewashing made much better sense.

We travelled through Grahamstown to the north, stopped off at the 1820 settlers monument on the edge of town, negotiated a few traffic hazards, bought some biltong, went in search of my paternal grandmother’s house in the centre of town and then on to the Hogsback a small town nestled in the mountains, reminding both of us of places we used to visit (White River (N) and Inyanga (J)) in our youth.

Taking a leaf out of Ann’s book, Jen took many road shots on our travel with a selection shown here. Some of the idiosyncrasies of travelling through Africa will be familiar to some although a cow wandering through the streets of Grahamstown was a surprise. Those are uncured cattle skins thrown casually over the fence (top left). 

We stayed at The Edge, Hogsback, an appropriately named resort situated on the edge of the escarpment looking out over the E Cape.

On the first evening a wedding reception was taking place at the resort. I took some pictures of the couple during their photo shoot.

We had a serious storm on the second afternoon with lightening hitting our cottage. The storm resulted in electricity for the whole town being out, a not so unusual occurrence though, as the national energy provider’s load shedding program regularly does it all for you.  

We spent a few hours in the local arboretum then hiked down a steep slope to find the Madonna and Child waterfall.  In the park I found a mountain malachite damselfly feeding, then taking off. 

On the road north, via Alice and Fort Beaufort we made our way through the Cape into the Free State and onto Zastron. 

We stayed the night in Zastron, a lab puppy welcoming me. Gathering afternoon storms are always good subjects for photography while Jen finds security fencing rather interesting!

The sight of an abandoned rugby field covered in weeds, the small derelict stand mournful in the morning sun was a reminder of the changing dynamics of South African society.

We drove up to Wepener, where the sight of the Town Hall in disrepair with kids playing in the weed filled grounds was a shock, to then cross the border into Lesotho 

Lesotho is a fascinating country – the roads are good with a 80 kmh max speed limit with 50 in the built up areas (large speed bumps protect every village).  Driving was interesting to say the least and required defensive action with donkeys, cows, sheep, pedestrians and vehicles coming from all angles.   

The country side is varied, with the flatter lowlands ascending into sweeping mountains that tested our little car’s engine as we made our way to Semonkong – a last frontier village deep in the mountains. The road was recently completed by the Chinese government and we saw a few examples of where Chinese workers found comfort with some of the local lasses. 

We stayed at the Semonkong Lodge where the Maletsunyane River runs in front of the buildings. The view of Semonkong, the lodge tucked down next the river is below. Yoked cattle are being driven to work in the fields to the left.

The thoroughfare for locals travelling between the falls area and the town runs past the Lodge’s reception.  Locals, particularly the women, balance their loads on their heads rather than carry them. I have found I am becoming particularly interested in photographing birds – the hamerkop taking sticks to his large nest and the malachite sunbird are pictured here. 

Semonkong is home of the Maletsunyane Falls approximately 195 metres high where if you are feeling brave you can abseil 204 metres down the side of it (receiving a certificate stating that the Guinness Book of Records recognises this as the highest commercial abseil in the world)

We walked for two hours through the mountains to get to the falls, finding a few dwellings and a Sunday morning stream of riders on horses, kids looking for sweets and water bottles, stray donkeys and cows. It was a unique experience.

Believe or not, the white dots on the lower slope to the right of the waterfall are goats.

We drove from Semongkong to Ficksburg, another slow, winding trip but with eye-opening scenery. One of the interesting features was that the locals manage to grow crops on sections of the steep slopes.

Dennis and Jenny Cowley, parents of Tom and Ann’s great friends in Kleinemonde, very kindly offered us a bed in their block house hewn from the ubiquitous sandstone in the area (built in 1895 and lived in by a magistrate in earlier times) in Ficksburg in the Free State. I was interested in the magistrate angle as my paternal grandfather was the magistrate in Ficksburg after WW1 but unfortunately, I have no idea where in the town he lived.

Travel tip

For those interested in such things we are connecting to the internet on the ipad and computer by linking to the hotspot option on one of our iphones. We buy only data from Vodacom for that phone while maintaining airtime on the other phone. It’s working well although like in Australia data is expensive and we have to be very careful not to open photos or videos on something like Facebook. We are of course reliant on phone service coverage, which on the whole has been really good.