Originally Posted by
Chris8d
A short trip report for those interested.
With all the big rains and wet weather, we experienced over the last 10 days we knew that we were going to be in for a wet muddy one, we just didn’t realize how wet it would actually be!
It has been raining every single day and rain was forecasted for the next 5 days with thunder storms every afternoon. That evening before the trip started, we again had a big storm. We were hoping that the clouds would empty themselves before our trip.
The next morning, we left early and headed for Qacha’s Nek. We stayed off the main roads wherever we could and enjoyed the scenery.
On the road between Swartberg and Matatiele we came across thousands of Lesser Kestrel’s sitting on the fence lines like swallows. I have never seen so many of them in my life.
It was evident that there had been big rains all over, roads washed, bridges flooded and every single low laying area covered in water. But we were not put off by all of this, we were out to enjoy ourselves.
We reached Qacha’s Nek Border and without any hassle and friendly service had our vehicles checked and passports stamped. Off we went, turning off the main road before even exiting the town of Qacha’s Nek.
We headed towards the Tsoelike weir, if one doesn’t know where to turn off you will surlily miss it, even with a GPS mark the turn was not visible and we had to split up just to find a way down through the small village to the weir. From the Tsoelike river to the top of the hill is under 1km and one climbs 290m in altitude.
From here it was off to the Senqu river, hugging its banks as best we could all the way to Matsaile and Bob Phillips Camp. We reached the campsite at 5pm, covering 430km in 13 hrs on the first day.
Up to this point road conditions were fairly ok, plenty of water and mud holes around every corner with rain on and off during the day. As soon as camp was set up the rain started falling nonstop the entire night. It was so heavy that at one stage that we thought the river might push up and flood our camp site.
We got up early the next morning and packed up camp in the wet and mud, it wasn’t much fun at all. With high spirits and excitement, some uncertainty too, we headed direction Matabeng Pass.
As some of you might know, Matabeng Pass is not in use any longer, there is a newer road built and obviously the pass is not maintained anymore.
Not knowing the condition of Matabeng Pass and considering the high rainfall of the last 3 seasons we knew that we were in for a long day.
Most of the day was spent driving in water, the very rocky track was basically a river but surprisingly not as bad as we initially thought it was going to be. With a bit of 4x4 experience the pass is doable for anyone wanting to attempt it. I wouldn’t take a unmodified vehicle up the pass, it will need to be lifted so not to get damaged, also don’t go up alone, you will need help being recovered should you get bogged down.
The top of Matabeng peaks out at just over 10 000ft and this obviously goes together with some amazing views.
The 40km over Matabeng to Sehlabathebe took us just over 7hrs to complete.
One can just arrive at the Sehlabathebe National Park office and pay your entrance fee and camping fee, no arrangements need to be made. The New lodge is really stunning but one can see that it doesn’t see many visitors. The old lodge, Jonathan’s Lodge, is just walls and half a roof falling apart, there are no ablutions or water anymore at this site.
Camping fees was R100 pppd and to enter the park was another R50 pp
There are some amazing hiking to be done in the park and one is spoiled camping with Devil’s Knuckles as your view.
Again, it rained on and off for most of the day followed by a massive downpour that afternoon.
I wanted to go see the hidden Tsoelikanyane Falls and fish for some trout. A fishing license should be bought from the park office when entering.
Just an interesting fact, did you know that one gets a Maluti Minnow, also called the Sehlabathebe Minnow, up in the Tsoelikanyane stream? This minnow, which is technically not a minnow, can only be found in a few streams up in Lesotho and they are getting fewer and fewer due to habitat loss and predators, small mouth yellow fish and Trout are the culprits.
They were first found in 1938 in KZN and have been extinct since 1940. This minnow was rediscovered in Sehlabathebe in 1971
Day 3 saw us heading out of the park and home via Rama’s Gate. This stretch of road is being worked on and it was dump trucks, excavators, TLB’s and mud the entire 40 odd kms to the border post. They have been building that road since 2018 and there is no end in sight.
361km and 8 hrs of driving
All and all it was well worth the wet, we had a amazing time with a great bunch of guys.
Thank you to everyone for joining us on this trip, we are looking forward to the next one.
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