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This trip isnt all about animals - today its about scenery.
The Panorama Route is a scenic drive through the drakensburg mountains alongside the Blyde river canyon.
The Drakensburg mountains are 3000km long and run across south africa - they could even be longer as research suggests they might start in Antarctica. They were formed crack in the plates and molten magma formed granite mountains or something like that....They are 2000m above sea level, selati is only 500m above sea level so they tower over the reserve & its coppies. They blyde river canyon on the other hand is the 3rd largest in the world but 1st largest vegetated canyon & home to very diverse species - at least 100 different ones per sq m
So know you know the background this is what we got up to...
After leaving base at 5 we drove right along the route straight through to Graskop, a small little tourist town. we stopped at harries pancakes (famous SA pancake house) for breakfast - yum yum!!
We then kept going south to Marie falls & mac mac falls. Marie falls was quite a small waterfall, mac mac was higher - though 2 coach loads of geography teachers also admiring the view kinda ruined mine!
This was as far as we'd go, we were now going to make our way back the way we'd come stoping at all the look outs etc
However the weather had other ideas as the cloud came in & stole the view! we couldnt see the pinnacle.....at gods window we couldnt see 10m let alone to Mozambique like we should have been able to....and at wonder view, we would have been wondering where the view had gone so we gave that a miss ! Still being above the clouds was also quite a nice view - just not the one we had hope for!
Luckily the cloud cleared as we headed off the beaten track towrds the nxt set of waterfalls - Lisbon falls & Berlin falls. We also managed to lose the 2 coach loads of geography teachers we'd met at each other lookout so far!
We continued our journey along the mountains admiring the views & the rocky landscapes (which with rocks scattered across the green hills looked a bit like winnats pass in castleton)
Our next stop was bourkes luck potholes. Here the meeting of 2 rivers created little whirlpools which wore away the rock leaving circular holes. We had a paddle & our guide Stacey got a little wetter than the rest of us as she fell in & gave us a laugh! We also saw a little family of baboons walking up he tourist paths which was rather cute
Next and final stop was the three rondawels - named after 3 little hills that look like African rondawel huts. the view here was breathtaking. i've been to the grand canyon but this was so much better - perhaps because of the vegetation making it more interesting, perhaps because its slightly smaller so it was easier to view the whole canyon??
Unfortunately there wasnt enough time to go down to the bottom of the canyon but hopefully will do that that tomorrow en route to moholoholo animal rehab centre
It was now 5.30 & as nice as the Mexican hotspot being cooked at base sounded we decided to go to a restaurant in hoedspruit. It was an old railway station but the line was still in use - and everytime a train went past if you ran to the bar you'd get a free jello shot! Finally something dad & I can enjoy together!?! And the day wouldn't be complete without a visual of some cats, the restaurant had 3 Siamese kitty's wandering around looking for scraps!! And then we saw a jackel (wild cat) on the way home!! Meow!!
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