The route from Royal Natal NP to Clarens is all on sealed roads, well it should be but a long stretch of the R74 was a complete mess of pot holes, dirt and gravel. Once on the R712 the tarmac reappeared and we headed towards Golden Gate National Park which the main road runs directly through. I waved my wild card at the park ranger but it was free to drive through. This NP is almost as stunning as Royal Natal as it borders the same range of mountains but we spotted some game here as we drove along; wildebeest, zebra, springbok and blesbok.
We rocked up at Clarens for our last stop before the big city. A good choice as Clarens is a lovely small town with loads of coffee shops, restaurants, cafes, crafts shops, art galleries and even a brewery pub! It was good to taste some locally brewed beer instead of the mass produced SAB stuff. Unfortunately, it was getting late when we arrived due to our morning gorge walk and we didn’t really have time to appreciate this tranquil town to the full. We found another great place to stay, Stone Haven GH, and excellent value at R500 for a room with kitchen, sitting room and balcony with mountain views. We didn’t have use of the kitchen though as we had used up all our supplies so we headed into town and ended up in a Mexican restaurant, fine by us as not many of those in Kampala.
Johannesburg
We managed to get to Jo’burg from Clarens in pretty good time and even managed to navigate our way through the motorway madness and find the Aviator Hotel in Kempton Park. We chose the place for its accessibility to the airport for our early morning flight. It is a pretty functional hotel and served its purpose. We tried to find some life outside the hotel but the area is pretty run down and no decent restaurants nearby. So not much to report from Johannesburg.
Overall, we had a fantastic time driving around South Africa, we covered over 7,500 km during our 6 week stay and enjoyed some incredible scenery and wildlife. There are many place we would love to go back to and I have a hunch we will be back in South Africa one day soon.