I ♥ White River Because ...

I ♥ White River

Hi, I’m Amanda from umS­isi House and umS­isi Cottage just out­side White River on the way to the Kruger National Park and just minutes away from the Casterbridge Lifestyle Centre.

White River IS BEST KNOWN FOR its prox­im­ity to the Kruger National Park and the Panorama Route.
GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN IN the Blyde River Canyon and show your friends what it looks like to be '[on top of the world'.
THE BEST PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT the Three Rondavels where the sign says 'Do not go any fur­ther'.
OTHER HAPPY SNAPS AT God's Window and Wonder View. Continued

Casterbridge in White River, almost a Hardy novel setting

Casterbridge

White River is linked to Nelspruit by the R40. The two towns are so close (20 minutes' drive) that it is only time before they merge, incor­por­at­ing the rather innoc­u­ous Rocky Drift that at the moment serves as a buf­fer between them.

The secret to travel, any­where, is to do as the loc­als do – 'when in Rome' and all that. I real­ise more and more that it isn't about read­ing travel bro­chures – they'll send you where they want you to go – but fol­low­ing the trail of loc­als, as they'll lead you to spaces and places where spend­ing your hard-earned dosh will feel that much more reward­ing. Continued

Le Pâtissier — when in Hazyview, visit the Belgian Baker

Le Pâtissier

Croissants, coun­try ham, quiche Lorraine, pastries that include apple turnover, Belgian milk tart, chocol­ate eclair, Danish eight, apple fran­gi­pane, cus­tard slice; Belgian break­fast with an assort­ment of cheeses, crois­sant or pain au chocolat, health bread sand­wiches, artisan breads of every descrip­tion, and cof­fee to die for...

Hazyview, when we get there, is busy. That it rests just out­side the Kruger National Park is doubt­less the reason, par­tic­u­larly as every second vehicle is some rendi­tion of the safari jeep; the type with staggered rows of seat­ing remin­is­cent of a mini-theatre on wheels – 'ta da, we're here to see wild life!' Continued

A Diversion en Route to Barberton – Boondocks Labyrinth

Boondocks Labyrinth

Stuart and I get off on the wrong foot with one another. It doesn't help that I hear incor­rectly when he intro­duces him­self, and pro­ceed to call him by the wrong name until he gra­ciously cor­rects me when I finally shake his hand at the gate.

He bears this inad­vert­ent dis­cour­tesy without cri­ti­cism, grace­fully in fact. As he does my chal­len­ging tone (I'm a little stressed and Stuart gets the brunt of it. Would it make me look a little bet­ter if I added that I don't like talk­ing on cell phones?).

I later laugh at Stuart's account of what it takes to hold a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion up on the hill at Boondocks. It is noth­ing short of undig­ni­fied and involves pla­cing one's head vir­tu­ally inside a pot plant with one's der­rière exposed – cell phone recep­tion is vir­tu­ally non-existent, except at the site of the plant and inter­mit­tently on the edge of the escarp­ment. And Telkom refuse to bring in a line all this way. Not hav­ing any tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion or inter­net access forms a large part of the charm of Boondocks. Continued

Nukain Mabusa's Painted Mountain

Mabusa's Painted Mountain

“You can't miss them,” Stuart instructs as we leave Boondocks, “head off that way, go past the what­sit, down a slight dip and they're on your left”. Stuart is busy giv­ing us last minute dir­ec­tions to find Nukain Mabusa's flower garden, advert­ised on most of the local tour­ist inform­a­tion we pick up as worth a look-see.

We zoot off along the R38, Kaapmuiden behind us, Barberton ahead of us. I'm look­ing out for a garden. My bet­ter half, who as usual has done a bit of home­work, is look­ing out for a series of painted rocks. Neither of us is quite pre­pared for the non-event of the stone garden.

Drive too fast and you will pass them by without a back­ward glance. Nowhere is there a road sign to pre­pare you – local tour­ism obvi­ously, des­pite using the designs as a brand­ing tool, hasn't deemed them worthy of any type of formal road­side mar­ket­ing. Continued

I ♥ Malelane Because ...

I ♥ Malelane

Hi, I’m Peter Jaehne from Khandizwe River Lodge in Malelane.

Malelane IS BEST KNOWN FOR its lush, trop­ical sur­round­ings and prox­im­ity to the Kruger National Park.
GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT the Malelane Bridge with hip­pos frol­ick­ing below you in river.
THE BEST Kruger Park PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT the Malelane Gate,the entrance gate to the Kruger National Park.

WHEN THE WEATHER'S GOOD, I LIKE TO relax in my swim­ming pool watch­ing the ele­phants below the Lodge.
WHEN THE WEATHER'S BAD, I LIKE TO watch National Geographic movies about Africa and its beau­ti­ful wild­life.
I THINK THE BEST TIME OF YEAR TO VISIT IS all year around BECAUSE the col­ours of the bush and its flora and fauna changes all the time. Continued

Kaapsche Hoop — wild horses, blue swallows, historical buildings and time away

Kaapse Hoop

We round the corner at the top of the plat­eau, hav­ing left Nelspruit behind and below us, and there sud­denly in a clear­ing in amongst a series of rough sand­stone rocks, Kaapsche Hoop makes its pres­ence known.

The gor­geous little ham­let lies high enough above the towns of Nelspruit and Barberton to exper­i­ence a com­pletely dif­fer­ent set of weather pat­terns. Residents will tell you that you can anti­cip­ate a dif­fer­ence of at least five degrees. Continued

Adam's Calendar

Adam's Calendar

“Oh, sorry, no we don't organ­ise tours to Adam's Calendar”, the rather disheveled youth who seems to be man­aging Koek 'n Pan single handedly through an unanti­cip­ated brunch rush, tells me.

I good naturedly fail to men­tion that I've already taken the trouble to fill out the form he thrust in my hands earlier, when I broached a tour to the stones. I'm begin­ning to won­der if Adam's Calendar is delib­er­ately ellus­ive and dif­fi­cult to find for vis­it­ors. Perhaps it's fit­ting that the stones, shrouded in mys­tery, remain that way ... Continued

I ♥ Komatipoort Because ...

I ♥ Komatipoort

Hi, I’m Sue Steele from Trees Too Guest Lodge in Komatipoort, Mpumalanga.

Komatipoort IS BEST KNOWN FOR the Crocodile Bridge Gate into the Kruger, being next to the Mozambique and Swaziland bor­ders and for prawns!
GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT the Kruger Park with an obli­ging ele­phant or lion as your back­drop ... sub­ject to avail­ab­il­ity.
THE BEST wild­life PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT the sec­tion of the Kruger between Crocodile Bridge and Lower Sabie.
OTHER HAPPY SNAPS AT the stun­ning Samora Machel monu­ment or from a micro light flight up the Crocodile River.

WHEN THE WEATHER'S GOOD, I LIKE TO visit the Kruger Park.
WHEN THE WEATHER'S BAD, I LIKE TO ... visit the Kruger Park! Remember a bad day in the bush beats a good day in the office!
I THINK THE BEST TIME OF YEAR TO VISIT IS March to October, BECAUSE its not too hot and the game view­ing is stun­ning ... although again there is no bad time to visit Komatipoort and the Kruger Park. Continued

When in Nelspruit: shop 'til you drop

When in Nelspruit ...

Nelspruit is fondly known as Nellies by those who live there, and Mbombela by all that is offi­cial, although you are still alright for signs on the high­way – most of these still indic­ate Nelspruit, for those as dis­trac­ted as I am.

There has been an offi­cial name change. Nelspruit, home of Radio Laeveld 100.5 fm, is called Mbombela. But since this happened only in 2009, and the city was still offi­cially referred to as 'Nelspruit' for the World cup, and all road signs (as I already men­tioned) still call the city Nelspruit, there is some obvi­ous confusion.

The only people uncon­cerned are the many traffic offi­cials who zoot around in smart cars emblazoned with Mbombela Traffic, which had the rather sober­ing effect of ensur­ing that I main­tained the ridicu­lous speed limit of 70 km per hour on the N4 through the city, des­pite the double car­riage­way. I was in a bor­rowed car! Continued

Bourke's Luck Potholes Photographs

Begin your wander around Mpumalanga with Bourke's Luck Potholes, for they are without doubt incred­ible. To see these geo­lo­gical won­ders (it is no sur­prise to learn that Bourke's Luck Potholes made it onto Frommer's 500 places to take your kids before they grow up) that are an amaz­ing array of white, yel­low and dark brown eddies of col­our because of the soil present in the water, you'll need to travel roughly 35 kilo­metres due north of Graskop on the R532. They are on the Panorama Route and are one of the major tour­ist attrac­tions in South Africa, so best get there ahead of the bus tours ... Continued

Mpumalanga — top things to do

God's Window

They speak about Mpumalanga as the place of the rising sun. Indicative in many ways of the out­door life­style that is the essence of time-out in Mpumalanga, one goes there for the wide open spaces, the sweep­ing moun­tains, tor­rent­ous rivers and water­falls, and val­leys enshrouded in mist.

The  romance of the lowveld beck­ons with its game farms, lodges and bush breaks in the south­ern parts of the Kruger National Park. Think Mpumalanga, and Bourkes Luck Potholes come to mind, fol­lowed swiftly by other geo­graphic icons like God's Window and the Three Rondawels. So much of the Mpumalanga province that lies in the north­ern east­ern parts of the coun­try is now geared to vis­it­ors that it becomes a case of being select­ive about what one does, rather than hav­ing to scour for things to do.

The team at SA Venues has put together a list of the top things you abso­lutely MUST do when in Mpumalanga, fol­lowed by a few of the out-of-the-way, need to have been there before places and spaces that you may not know about ... Continued

Adam’s Calendar and Stone Circle Ruins in Waterval Boven, Mpumalanga

Stone Circles

Like many South Africans I took a gap year after school and went to the UK to work and exper­i­ence life. Which ulti­mately ended up in me work­ing in a pub for pit­tance and spend­ing most of my time drink­ing. Still I did man­age to see a little of the United Kingdom and spent some time in Somerset county after going there for the Glastonbury fest­ival. While I was there I saw Stonehenge, the Avebury stone circle and developed quite a lik­ing for the strange, sym­met­rical stone form­a­tions that appar­ently were maps of the stars.

It was only years later, long hav­ing returned to South Africa, cut my hair and shaved, that I dis­covered that our lovely coun­try has its own ver­sion of these ancient temples to the stars ... Continued

One of South Africa’s most impressive wonders: the Sudwala caves

Sudwala Caves

Area 51 in New Mexico, the Bermuda tri­angle, the loc­a­tion of Osama Bin Laden — every­body likes a good mystery.

Take the Sudwala Caves for instance. Legend has it that the Sudwala Caves have no end and they may stretch for more than 40km under the moun­tains. There is also an unex­plained con­stant flow of fresh air in the caves that no one can find the source of. Ok, so it’s not exactly a Sherlock Holmes type mys­tery, but it still is inter­est­ing.  Towering above the val­ley of the lively moun­tain stream Houtbosloop, the vast Mankelexele (rock upon rock) moun­tain range holds one of South Africa’s most impress­ive won­ders: the Sudwala caves ... Continued

Kruger National Park photographs

Two months ago, I embarked on a 2 week road trip of South Africa, includ­ing a week in our most fam­ous game reserve: the Kruger National Park. This was my first visit, and my mind still boggles at the sheer size of the Kruger park and the mag­ni­fi­cence of its untouched wil­der­ness. I am not a pro­fes­sional pho­to­grapher, but I hope you’ll enjoy this col­lec­tion of pho­to­graphs that I took. We were lucky enough to see the Big 5 twice dur­ing our stay, but it is some of the “other” wild­life pho­tos that most inspires me and reminds me of the won­der­ful hol­i­day we had within our beau­ti­ful coun­try. Continued