Tag Archives: hiking

Hiking & Pony Trekking in the Kingdom of Lesotho

On Easter Sunday, we disassembled our little camp in the Drakensberg and drove to Ficksburg, a town in South Africa’s Free State province on the border of Lesotho. The drive was beautiful, skirting around the Drakensberg mountains and right through Golden Gate Highlands National Park.

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Golden Gate Highlands National Park

After a night spent luxuriating in a warm, spacious hotel room (so different from our tent!), we crossed into the Kingdom of Lesotho, a landlocked country that is completely surrounded by South Africa.1 Lesotho’s geography is dominated by mountains – its lowest point lies at the lofty elevation of 1,400 meters (4,593 feet). 2

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Welcome to Lesotho!

Our first stop was in Maseru, Lesotho’s capital and largest city. (More accurately, our first stop was at the Pick n Pay in Maseru, where we grabbed some lunch supplies to make a picnic in our car in the parking lot. The glamorous life of travel here, folks.) Maseru isn’t large on attractions, and we didn’t spend long in the city. Continue reading Hiking & Pony Trekking in the Kingdom of Lesotho

Our (Sort Of) Westlaw-Sponsored Camping Excursion

April is full of South African holidays,1 and all parties (from our guidebooks and the internet, to guesthouse hosts and kindly strangers) warned us to book our accommodation during and around these dates well in advance.

We intended to follow this advice (honest, we did), but we have been enjoying planning our African adventure as we go, oftentimes only booking a hotel room an hour or two before arrival. Not having everything planned out allows us the freedom to stay longer in places that are unexpectedly amazing, duck out earlier than planned if there’s bad weather or the area turns out to be overly touristy, and make use of advice from fellow travelers we meet along the way.

And it’s also how we found ourselves heading for the Drakensberg,2 an UNESCO World Heritage site and, more importantly, a popular vacation destination, on the Thursday before the long Easter weekend without any accommodation arranged.

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Understandably popular location for the long weekend.

Continue reading Our (Sort Of) Westlaw-Sponsored Camping Excursion