2006 September - Drakensberg Dragon Peaks trip

DRAKENSBERG TRIP

23 – 25 SEPTEMBER 2006

We packed Rissiepit (our 4x4 Pajero) for a weekend in the Central Drakensberg mountains, at a resort called Dragon Peaks (www.dragonpeaks.com), on the N3 between Harrismith and Pietermaritzburg.  

Leaving Johannesburg at 5 am the Saturday morning, we felt rather peckish around 7am.  Wanting something different for breakfast, not the usual 1-Stop restaurants, we took the Roadside/Reitz offramp – about 200km from Johannesburg.  You can easily spot the restaurant cum art gallery “MAKITI” from the highway – bright orange with interesting architectural features.

What a surprise it turned out to be!  Very artisticly decorated, with scrumptious meals served in oval plates. 

Besides your normal English breakfast options, you can also choose a Biltong Breakfast – homemade bread with biltong.   For lunch they serve Bobotie / Traditional Chicken Pie / Curry Fish / Lamb Chops / Steak or a Cold Meat Platter.

Look at the ostrich on the table – the wire body is filled with a “Goldilocks” scourer.  So cute. 

The Art Gallery is filled with unusual tapestries and at the little shop you can stock up with homemade jams and breads or even buy a small puppy for R40.   What a welcome change from the mass-stampede at the petrol stations!

We arrived at Dragon Peaks around 9:30am.  Dragon Peaks Mountain Resort originated in 1963.  In 1967 the family started the famous Drakensberg Boys’ Choir.  Although the chalets and camping site are only metres away from the school, you very rarely see any of the boys.

The Resort has numerous stunning accommodation options:

B&B  SUITES

Luxury Thatched Cottages each with 3 individual Suites. Each Cottage shares a lounge, fireplace and dry bar.  They do not have catering facilities and coffee/tea sachets are provided daily.  All meals are taken in the restaurant.

PARK LODGE

A luxury double storey Thatched Cottage, 3 bedrooms en suite. Oak furnishings, fireplace, underfloor heating, air con, kitchen with oven & hob, microwave, dishwasher, washing machine. Each bedroom has it's own TV. The braai area is secluded and this is a stunning self-catering option for friends and family.

DRAKENSBERGERS
These 40sqm Park Homes with built on verandas each have two bedrooms of one double bed and two singles. They have a kitchen/dinette/lounge with air-con and heater, and a bathroom with bath and toilet. Three of the chalets have both a bunk bed and a single bed in the second bedroom. There are seventeen units in total on three terraces located towards the back of the park, in walking distance of the pool and restaurant. 

CARAVAN & CAMPING SITES

You can either tow your caravan there every time, or leave it in their storage bays.  If you phone them a few days ahead of your stay, they will (at an additional cost) park your caravan at a spot and even pitch the tent for you.  The ablution facilities are really outstanding with washing machines, hair dryers, etc.

For the lazy bones, Dragon Peaks is a beautiful holiday spot.  We normally braai, braai and braai, take leisure walks to the dams or read a book.

Every day at 11h00 tea is outside the restaurant and sometimes they sell flapjacks or muffins.  This weekend they had nothing and we were quite disappointed.  The restaurant is separate from the pub and serve lovely meals.  Or you could watch the sport in the pub and enjoy a pub meal. If you have forgotten your shampoo or soap, there is a little shop stocked with “bits of everything”.

For the energetics amongst us, Dragon Peaks offers the following:
Hiking – Challenging at some spots

Rustic Pub – Beer anyone?
Fishing – Even for the kids
Horse riding – Supervised horse trails
Games Room – Pool tables & arcade style

Swimming Pools – With a slide
Bird Watching – You hear them all day

Our usual choice is the Drakensberger accommodation. 

Sunday 24 September 2006
Drinking coffee the Sunday morning around 6am, we were amazed to see kids on the trampolines, busy fishing, on the swings or just  “goofing” around.  We also saw lots of “sleepy-eyed” parents nursing huge mugs of coffee.

One warning:  if you do not like kids, do not go to Dragon Peaks.  You might just find it all a bit too busy and noisy.

Monday 25 September 2006
Leaving the Resort on Monday morning, around 9am, we decided to drive over the Oliviershoek Pass, the R74.  We stopped at the “Caterpillar and Catfish” Restaurant (www.cookhouse.co.za) for breakfast, situated on the crest of the Oliviershoek Pass.

A dream house.  Wooden floors, stone exterior, a wrap-around verandah with long dining room tables, comfortable cane sofas and a picturesque gazebo for romantic summer evenings.

We were served the usual English Breakfast, with flavoured coffee and “Kenny G” in the background.

They have a menu with creatively named dishes, for example:

Nana & Cado Salad (salad with trout, avo, banana…)

Jamaican Jerked French Hen (marinated and flat…)

The Legendary Pint ‘O Prawns (12 large black tigers…)

Trout Festival (@ R55)

The Po Bo (snack platter…)

Chocolate Lava (my kind of dessert…)

In the dining room they have this frame with cutlery glued on a piece of camouflage material (actually, it looked like water stains).  What a clever way to display odds and ends.

With our hunger pains dealt with, we continued home.

We arrived home around 2pm, unpacked Rissiepit, did some laundry, played with the cat kids and settled down with a beer in the hand and a chicken on the Weber. 

We just l-o-v-e to braai!

2006 August - The Lodge, Kamberg Valley

THE LODGE – DRAKENSBERG MOUNTAINS

For our anniversary in July, we booked an August long-weekend in the Drakensberg Mountains, in the Kamberg area, Natal.

The Kamberg area is close to Mooirivier and Rosetta (a one-horse town) on your way to Durban.  We were there last year, but the roads were so bad from the rain, we had to borrow the owner’s 4x4 just to get to the lodge.  This year, we took our own 4x4, a short wheelbase black Pajero, named Rissiepit.

Thursday 3 August 2006

When we drove through Harrismith, I asked Hein to stop at a Mr Price.  He forgot to pack his tracksuit pants (we were forewarned of a cold spell) and with only a jeans and shorts, I was sure he would suffer!  We arrived at Mooirivier around 3pm.  Filled up Rissiepit with petrol and took the last leg.  And then we saw it …  mountains covered in snow.  The sight of them were breathtaking.  But when we reached our destination, we couldn’t see them anymore.

The Lodge, where we stayed, is booked through Drakensberg Excursions (www.bergtrails.co.za) and offers sleeping for 11 people.  You can also hire horses and go on mountain trails.

As you can see, it is a stunning

place!  With its own trout dam

right in front of it.  On the left-    

hand side there’s a covered braai

area, big enough for a cane lounge

suite, as well as a cane dining

room table and chairs!

The only “drag” is you have to

take your own bedding and towels,

which doesn’t leave must space for

the rest.  (We folded Rissiepit’s

backseats to the front and had quite a big area for all the bedding and food.)  One has to travel with all your food needs, because it’s not just for jumping in the car and fetching milk or bread or such ….  the nearest petrol station is 10 min away and only stock the very basics.  For the rest, you have to drive at least 30-45 min. 

The house has no TV, there’s no cellphone reception – so one just read, eat, sleep and talk.  Honeymoon bliss!  (Well, we did celebrate our 14^th anniversary!)  For this stunning setting, you would expect to pay a lot – but no!  A mere R100 per person per night is their charge.  Try and beat that!  And it’s only about 5 hours’ drive from Johannesburg.

Rissiepit took the bad road absolutely in her stride.  While I unpacked (Hein normally packs everything – a task he’s not very keen on, but hates unpacking more), we discovered the loads of firewood left for us next to the Jetmaster fireplace.  Sadly, for some reason, we didn’t take a photo.  And when we left the Tuesday, there were still some left!  (The firewood is included in the price.)

Every morning we took our coffee (always travel with our own coffee machine!) outside on the stoep, but believe me, you had to dress in windbreakers.  While you sip your coffee, you listen to the silence … and then you hear the little birds … and the wind through the trees … pure heaven!

Saturday 5 August 2006

We decided to “chase the snow”.  We drove to Loteni – a dirt road all the way and it took us about 1-2 hours.  We drove past huts with children playing outside, screaming for sweets and goats blocking the road every so often.

We reached the Loteni Camping Site and took photo’s from there.

 

Stunning, isn’t it?  Remember, Lesotho is just on the other side.   Funny enough, it wasn’t so cold where we took the photo’s, but driving away, the temperature actually dropped.   Now that was around lunchtime and we were starving! But with no pub or restaurant in sight, we drove on to Himeville, a quaint little town with a lovely pub.  We caught the last disastrous 10 min of the rugby game and then had some lovely bacon and guacamole burgers!    We didn’t want to drive back on the dirt road again, so drove from Himeville on to Howick and then back to Mooiriver and The Lodge.

Sunday morning 6 August 2006

The water was frozen in the pipes!  Luckily, I had filled the kettle with water the previous night, so we were able to make coffee.  (Thank goodness for that – we are lost without our morning cuppa!)  Hein braaied us boerewors for breakfast and we ate it with toasted sandwiches and more coffee.  We were only able to shower after 10.  

Hein went fishing around 11 at the neighbours, Attie & Evol (that’s love spelled in reverse), but the wind was a bit bad, so we made arrangements to fish in the afternoon.  While we walked to the dam, we saw this little pond – completely frozen!

Monday 7 August 2006

Our last day, so we just talked about Hein’s business, sat around the fire and relaxed.  By 5pm I was starving and I had something in mind… and it wasn’t in our grocery cupboard!  And what I wanted on that Monday afternoon was a real English Pub Pie! 

Rawdons (www.rawdons.co.za) is a hotel situated in the Midlands Meander (a mere 40min drive from The Lodge – although a bit frightening at night with cows and dogs walking in the road.)  At Rawdons, there’s a Nottingham Road Beer Brewery with a Pickled Pig Porter (dark beer), a Whistling Weasle Pale Ale and a Tiddly Toad Lager.

                                                     

The hotel has a cosy pub and I had the “Steak and Pickled Pig Pot Pie”.  It was served in a pastry bowl with a pastry lid.  (I suppose they line a small bowl with the pastry and bake it before spooning in the stew).  Well, I couldn’t finish my portion but it was everything I wanted on that cold winter night (besides my hubby, of course!)

The next morning we packed up, handed in the keys and went to greet Attie & Evol.  We always make new friends wherever we go and next time hopefully Hein will catch a trout. We waved a sad goodbye to isolation and peace and headed for civilization.