Mpumalanga: Beauty unparalleled

Mpumalanga (MP) means ‘the land of the rising sun’ in siSwati;isiZulu and isiXhosa, the Eastern Transvaal it was called pre-democracy. I usually say Mpumalanga is the Eastern Cape without the ocean, it is beautiful. Kindly add it to your top 10 places to see before you retire. Forget the Kruger National Park, there’s more to Mpumalanga than caged animals.
I first went to Mpumalanga in 2004. Bowled over by the beauty of the province, I carried memories of it for 12 years vowing to go back there one day.
19 March 2016, exactly 363 days since our road trip to Moria, my sister and I filled up the tank and drove to MP as part of her birthday celebrations. 

First stop was Pilgrim's Rest.

Pilgrim’s Rest is a living monument to the feverish gold rush days of the late 1800s. If you did Bantu Education in the 1980s you must have read Jock Of The Bushveld by James Percy FitzPatrick. Born frees can google. Pilgrim’s Rest is the village where Jock of the Bushveld roamed with his master, where thieves and diggers and good-time gals gathered in pubs and let rip like they like they did in the Great Gatsby.

We stopped at different landmarks taking pictures even in one of the museums that forbade taking pictures. Well fck rules #IAmChizama. 







 







I also remember Pilgrim’s rest as the town where I had the yummiest macamadia nuts EVER. A local gentleman sold them for R20, man oh man

Yasssa



















Don't these clouds look like an Easter Bunny? 





Sunsets. God loves us 
We wanted a picture of that signpost. This lady refused to move 

A few hours later we settled in Graskop for the one night. I do very short holidays. You come; You see; You conquer. Why spend any more time than is necessary? 
… I tend to miss my bed as well, I’m a wimp.

The small town of Graskop is the gateway to the Panorama Route and a good place to set up base. All the Scenic landmarks: God's Window, Wonder View, the Pinnacle, Bourke's Luck Potholes;  Lisbon Falls, Berlin Falls (yeah, European names: No #Chizama Falls, lark!!!) and Mac Mac Falls are just a few kilometres away.




 

GOD'S WINDOW 

                                                     

                                                                 MAC MAC POOLS, 65M 



                                                                BOURKE'S POTHOLES





BLYDE RIVER CANYON

 Google says The Blyde River Canyon is 25 kilometres in length and is, on average, around 750 metres deep. The Blyderivierpoort Dam, when full, is at an altitude of 665 metres.The canyon consists mostly of red sandstone. The highest point of the canyon, Mariepskop, is 1,944 metres above sea level, whilst its lowest point where the river leaves the canyon is slightly less than 561 metres above sea level. This means that by some measure the canyon is 1,383 metres deep.
It is the second largest canyon in Africa, after the Fish River Canyon, and is known as one of the great wonders of nature on the continent.

                                                         GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD









  
                                                   FOOLING AROUND. NOTHING NEW HERE 


MAC MAC POOLS 





   

BERLIN AND LISBON FALLS 















                                                             SUDWALA CAVES



We drove back to Gauteng going via Nelspruit for theSudwala Caves. They told us R150 or so for the tour. We smuggled ourselves in; took pictures and left undetected. R150 is $10 yo, only 20% of the world population lives above $10/day. Nah!!! Mandela did not die in June of 2013 for that. I said June


Highlights
1.   1. Roadtrip with my sister. Just us two. Roadtrips allow people to talk, minimal network meaning less time on Facebook and Twitter. We spoke about so many topics, learning from one another. She asked biblical questions that I could not answer, I was embarrassed that I could not. I'm the adult you know.

2.    2. BaPedi: I had thought the population of Mpumalanga is solely AmaSwazi namaNdebele. We live to learn.

3.   3. Dinner at The Glasshouse Restaurant. Look, the owner knows how to run his business. He treated us like royalty. I’d go back to Graskop again, just for him.

4.  Lowlight  I drove from 6am until 4pm the following day, discounting the hours I was sleeping. Qaia better get a driver’s license. I’m too fabulous to be a chauffeur **pouts**

T  Dear Reader, we have a beautiful country. Restaurants are overrated; take short left and visit the country side


                             To the people of Mpumalanga: Siyabonga/Re a leboga

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