Eastern Cape 2009 - Rhodes

Rhodes is a small village in the foothills of the Drakensburg mountains. We drove over a couple of mountain passes on our way there and had great views over the surrounding countryside. Naude's Nek is the highest pass in South Africa at 2500m. Everywhere was very green after the summer rains.

On our way down the pass we came across this memorial to the people who built the pass. The scenery changed and there were plenty of trees, rivers and streams - this area is known for its trout fishing.

Another attraction of the area is Tiffindell, which is the only ski resort in South Africa.. It's a tiny but attractive resort of wooden buildings, empty at the moment as it's summer. There's just 1 ski lift!!

From Rhodes it took about an hour to travel to the resort up narrow mountain tracks with one very steep zig-zag section.

As we'd noticed at Mount Currie as we got higher into the mountains so the number of wild flowers increased.

In this area we noticed plenty of scottish names - some seemed more appropriate than others.

We had another narrow track to negotiate to get back down into the valley, where we passed some interesting rock formations.

This is the main street in Rhodes!! There are buildings alongside the road but hidden by the trees!!

Yet another mountain pass. This is a route called the Bastervoetpad to the south of Rhodes. Once again we were lucky with the weather and could see for miles.

Over the pass the track was sometimes easy gravel but more often rocky and uneven. Once down into the next valley the track became quite overgrown. We stopped at this stream for a paddle.

The next day we weren't quite so lucky with the weather but still decided to carry on with our plan to tackle another mountain pass. Where the tracks were rocky it was fine but there were couple of sandy sections which were a bit slippery. Soon after I took this photo we met a car coming up and pass. we ended up reversing and then straddling the ditch on the left with our nearside wheels on the rocks so that the car could squeeze past.

Mount Currie Nature Reserve
Rhodes
Mountain Zebra National Park
Graaff-Reinet
Baviaanskloof
Addo Elephant National Park
Hogsback
Diary - Word document

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