It’s all about the journey
Each year, #him and I take the long and slow road. We’ve headed to Namaqualand and the Western Cape – driven by our relentless chase of spring flowers – year after year. This time, we bust out of our comfort zone and set out north, east and back again.
We hugged Lesotho through the eastern Free State and the Golden Gate Highlands National Park and edged into KwaZulu-Natal along dusty backroads we never knew existed. We loitered in Mpumalanga, where the further reaches of the Blyde River Canyon became the northernmost point of our journey (was this our destination?). We swung into Kruger National Park (was this our destination?) and shimmied through Eswatini (was this it?). We lingered in the Midlands before heading home via the southern Drakensberg.
Any of our stopping points over a two-week-plus winter journey could have been our destination. Somewhere, on one of these roads, we began pondering the art of road tripping. We have much to learn about this art. Here are some of the things we’ve figured out so far:
1 Break it up
We try not to drive for more than six hours a day on a road trip, preferably less.
So, instead of spending nine hours in a vehicle to Clarens, we overnighted in a humble farm cottage near Zastron. Us coastal dwellers froze! But we enjoyed the indoor fires (with ample supplied wood) and mists, full dams and positively lush vegetation due to unusual winter rain. If we had not done this, we would not have seen a rare Goliath heron at a farm dam.
And instead of an 11-hour drive on our last leg home to the Eastern Cape, we stumbled across a quirky shipping container cottage on a farm near Underberg with views forever. If we had not done this, we would not have spent an evening between fire and ice: a burning mountain (due to regular winter burns) on one side, and the snow-topped Drakensberg on the other.
There’s no rush to get wherever there is. Slow down.
2 Explore the trendy and the troubled
A road trip allows you to wind through small-town South Africa at your own pace. Much of it, you realize quickly, is in trouble – symbolized for us in the dereliction of the town hall in Wepener. (I discovered later that the building was ruined by a fire in 2017.)
The flipside is the rise of trendy towns. One can only do so much eating at trendy eateries and browsing through trendy shops, all at tourist prices. Nevertheless, we landed up in a few, and all are pretty and quirky. I guess they become trendy because they are nice places, and it is encouraging to see towns find niches for survival.
I’d wanted to return to Kaapsehoop near Mbombela ever since it enchanted me on a visit almost a decade ago. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that it had become so trendy. In fact, we almost missed the town as it now has a boom gate, personned by a bubbly woman in pigtails who asks you to part with some money. But it’s worth the visit, if not just to see the wild horses that wander around and through the village.
And some of these towns tell stories. Pilgrim’s Rest, once a gold mining town, is well on its way to being trendy; perhaps it’s there already. The town had fallen into disrepair, evident in the dilapidated diggings, and it’s steadily being restored. We spent a pleasant few hours here.
I understand that Clarens teems with people on the weekends – it’s within doable distance from Johannesburg. Luckily, we were there during the week. It’s a good base to head to the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, which is quite underrated, I think, and truly spectacular.
3 P is for podcast
On these long drives and even the shorter ones, we’ve grown to appreciate podcasts. This is when you focus on the road, map, views – and conversations. We listen to podcasts more on road trips than at any other time. Some of our favourites: True Crime South Africa; The Daily Beast; What Now? with Trevor Noah; Hidden Brain; and Empire. You can find these on any podcast platform.
4 And P is for picnic
We are keen but fairly poor students, so far, of this art within an art. Picnics save you a heap of money (it’s not feasible to eat at restaurants all the time on a road trip). They also allow you to pause in nature in interesting places. We have a picnic backpack, and we’ve added a sharp knife, little cutting board and even an old kikoi that works as a tablecloth.
Picnic sites in the more touristy areas are very well equipped, including with water stations to clean your items. Kruger National Park has fabulous picnic spots, but do watch out for the wildlife (apart from the sightings in the gallery I’ve shared below) – a vervet monkey snuck up and grabbed our last bit of Danish cheese from under our noses. During the week is better for us – the picnic sites are quieter, as we learned at Bourke’s Luck potholes.
5 Always take a corkscrew with you. And rechargeable lights, salt and pepper
We carry a big crate, filled with these items and other essentials (like decent pillows). Only some accommodation establishments think about providing these basics for their guests.
On our road trips, we seldom spend more than a night or two in one place, so we essentially live out of our vehicle – the crate carries all the things we might need if the host has not supplied them.
One day, we will venture into the art of camping, inspired by lovely friends who “wild camp”. Or maybe not. Until then, our crate will do.
6 There are craft sellers almost everywhere
Whatever the trendy towns were in the past, they rely heavily on tourism today. So do the communities that live up and down routes like the Blyde River Canyon. So, you will meet plenty of craft sellers. Hear their stories – these are decent people trying to make a living. Embrace it.
Probably don’t ask who made the items. Near the Three Rondavels, a woman told me the “boys” in her village carved the fish I admired; a few days later, I saw the same fish in Mbabane at a fraction of the price.
You may meet artists too. Near Pigg’s Peak in Eswatini, I bought a unique twisted figure from a man called Moses. He’d learned his carving art from his grandfather, and told me that the wood dictates to him what it will become.
7 Don’t always trust the maps
We thought the stylized maps of Kruger Park would be fine. They weren’t! We landed in a bit of a pickle more than once – no matter how pretty the maps, the distances and destinations were deceptive and the lesser roads totally confusing. And the fancy wipe-clean map we’d bought was so big and complicated that it made no sense to us.
Google Maps won’t always work because some areas don’t have signal, so download maps in advance. Even then, ask locals about routes and do some homework before you get on to a road. Google Maps sent us hurtling down a long forestry dirt road to Piet Retief after we exited Eswatini – I’m sure there was a gentler route. The app also didn’t help us find our Crocodile River accommodation in Malelane, although the provided directions were easily the worst ever.
But this is part of the adventure. With Google Maps as our guide, we bounced across dirt roads and foothills in the furthest reaches of the Free State to a little stone cottage south of Volksrust. “Oh, you took the scenic route,” our host laughed. I’m glad we did.
8 The good, the bad and the ugly
If you choose touristy stops, you will experience things like groups of loud, brash foreigners emerging from buses of pumping music (there is something about people in big groups) and blocked roads in national parks. Best is to be prepared. Expect the crowds at certain times and places, and balance that with pausing in quiet places.
There’s also the pricing issue. First, South African National Parks charge very high rates to locals and foreigners alike for accommodation.
Second, there’s a growing “exclusivity of the commons”, as #him calls it. In Mpumalanga’s Panaroma Route around Blyde River Canyon, we discovered that you now have to pay to enter every waterfall (on land owned by a state-owned enterprise) and almost every site – quite a lot, per person. AI (Perplexity) estimates it would cost R880-R970 for a South African couple to enter all major pay-to-enter waterfalls and iconic viewpoints between Sabie and the north of Blyde River Canyon; the equivalent to enter Kruger is R256. It would help if one could buy, say, a day pass for the route. Sadly, we noted a predominance of foreign accents at the Canyon stops and some places in Kruger, too – many South Africans simply can’t afford to visit these areas. We can do better as a country.
The mix that draws you back
I’m learning that a road trip is about the mix of moments – unexpected vistas, fire and ice, wild horses and crocodiles, the monkey stealing your cheese, the conversations with strangers and each other. These are the moments that stay with us. And they draw us back to the road, with each trip teaching us more. We remain eager and eternal students.
