A hop, skip and a jump to Pilgrim's Rest

Getting to Pilgrim's Rest from Johannesburg takes longer than you think it will. It shouldn't, as the obvi­ous route along the N4 is pretty straight for­ward — Witbank, Belfast, Waterval Boven — but this is where it starts get­ting fuzzy, because by this stage not only were we tired, hav­ing only left work at around 3pm, but by the time we hit Sabie there was also a not-so-fine mist to con­tend with.

Oncoming traffic became some­what indis­tinct, the world took on the ambi­ance of Narnia (I kept wait­ing for Mr Tumnus to come trot­ting out from under a lamp­post) and my stom­ach took the oppor­tun­ity to inform me that it was more than a little hungry — raven­ous prob­ably comes closer!

And so Sabie it was for a quick nosh stop, and I think the res­taur­ant was set in an old train, but I can't be cer­tain. I think we had pan­cakes or crêpes, but to tell you the truth, by this stage it could have been any­thing! Our des­tin­a­tion was begin­ning to feel more and more elu­sive, and, as the mist con­tin­ued we had reser­va­tions about get­ting there at all. Perhaps when the mist settled in like this, roads began turn­ing in on them­selves because it felt as though we drove around in ever dimin­ish­ing circles whilst get­ting nowhere fast.

But that was the tired brain speak­ing. After food, things even star­ted look­ing quite romantic, and we set off again in the know­ledge that it wasn't far now. Considering that some of the accom­mod­a­tion in Pilgrims Rest we passed had names like 'Misty Mountain lodge', it was obvi­ous that mist was a com­mon occur­rence here and that we had noth­ing to fear.

We pushed on to Mac Mac along the R532 and then on to Pilgrim's Rest to our camp­site on the banks of the Blyde River – because we were one of the only people there that week­end we man­aged to camp vir­tu­ally on top of the river in the shade of some trees. The camp­site was beau­ti­ful, and the bath­rooms clean and spa­cious. The cara­van park has sub­sequently become a part­ner­ship between the Mpumalanga Department of pub­lic works and Imbali Yezwe Project and is fam­ily owned and managed.

Hence it was that we only got to see Pilgrim's Rest the fol­low­ing morn­ing, after a good lie in and a hearty breakfast.

Pilgrim's Rest is just gor­geous. The entire town is a national monu­ment in its own right and has also achieved World Heritage status. In a sense, it's a liv­ing museum, a typ­ical little min­ing town built dur­ing the gold rush of the late 1800s, with a mod­ern day over­lay. So you get the feel­ing of the town as it must have been then, yet mod­ern day shops and busi­nesses now inhabit the build­ings. You can read all about the town's fas­cin­at­ing his­tory here — click to view.

We wandered through some of the little curio and arts and crafts shops with names like 'the Daisy' and 'Edwin Woods & Co Wine mer­chant' (that was actu­ally a place to stock up on South African wine set in what was once a mis­sion church!). You must make a stop in Kuzzulos Emporium where you get to dress up in old fash­ioned cloth­ing before pos­ing for a pho­to­graph to grace your mantlepiece (some­thing like they do at Gold Reef City).

One of the high­lights for me was the Royal Hotel. The Victorian style build­ing is restored to what must have been its former glory and offers beau­ti­ful en-suite bed­rooms — antique brass beds, wash stands and ward­robes that date back to that era. Walking through their lounge is like being in a time cap­sule(!) and the hotel's bar, known as the Church bar (quite amus­ing if you think of the irony) used to be a Catholic chapel for a school in Cape Town. It was appar­ently taken apart, bought by wealthy miners to Pilgrim's Rest (a six week jour­ney!) and then fit­ted back together again (they obvi­ously had a lot of time on their hands back then).

We could have tried a whole list of touristy type adven­tures laid out for people want­ing the whole exper­i­ence — gold pan­ning, the Digging Museum, a whirl through a vari­ety of churches, a house museum that sur­vives as a liv­ing example of the life­style of the town's ori­ginal gen­eral dealer, but we chose instead to hive off to the town's his­toric cemetery.

Set at the top of a hill, over­look­ing the town, the cemetery is the site of early graves of the town's res­id­ents. We were one of the only vis­it­ors to the town who bothered to trek up there, but it's worth it because of one grave. Known as the Robber's grave, it lies the oppos­ite way to every­one else's. Poor man, his crime was no worse than to have stolen other people's tents from them, but for his sins, he was shot by someone and bur­ied in a way that every­one would remem­ber him (I'll say noth­ing about today's law and order, shall I).

Once we thought we had the town scouted, we headed out on the Panorama Route, also known as the R532 — the north­ern parts thereof. It's a fam­ous route that takes in what must be Mpumalanga's treas­ure trove — God's Window, Berlin Falls, Bourke's Luck Potholes, the Blyde River Canyon and the Three Rondavels. Continue on and the route also incor­por­ates the Maria Shires Waterfall, Mac Mac Falls, Sabie River Gorge, and the Long Tom Pass.

Each of these won­ders is worth a stop for the spec­tac­u­lar scenery. Pity we had but four days to explore before return­ing to the city. But such is life ...

Useful Links:
Pilgrims Rest Attractions
Pilgrims Rest Accommodation
Pilgrims Rest Hotels
Mpumalanga Hotels

Photo Credits:
Photographs of Pilgrim's Rest are Courtesy of and © South African Tourism.