Day 12 - Oxbow, Lesotho to Sani Pass, RSA (4/10)

We had a very very chilly night in our windy spot in Oxbow (now we understand why the shepherds - in fact all Basotho whether they're out on hilltops in all weather or not - wear, or have handily around their waists, a thick toasty blanket and favour beanie hats! Or otherwise that traditional conical hat which appears on the flag, number plates and label for the local beer, Maluti)

So it was an early start out of Oxbow.  Between Oxbow to Sani Top (at 12 o’clock and 3 on the Lesotho ring-road clock respectively), runs the A1, a beautiful highland route called the Roof of Africa.

Improbably, it features a ski-run and chalet

The road is presently being dug up and widened (and, in parts, blown up)

which delayed us a little!  Though road-building seems to be a theme of our trip so far...

At the tiny settlement of Sani Top is the teeny little Lesotho border post, from which starts a steep zig-zagging pass called the Sani Pass*, descending the face of the Drakensberg escarpment from an altitude of 2874m.  

* confusingly also the name of the town in South Africa where the pass ends and where we made camp for the night

From about 1913, the Sani Pass was a bridal path trade route, with all goods carried by pack-mule (though drivers took spare beasts to replace any slow-coaches, shifting loads to the reserves and pushing any tired beasts over the edge; in those early days, the pass was apparently identifiable from afar because of the vultures and lammergeyers which circled above, waiting for their next meal…)  The Sani Pass proper was “opened” in 1948 by an ex-Spitfire pilot, Godfrey Edmonds. On 26 October 1948, with a team of labourers armed with ropes and assorted blocks and tackle, they manhandled a war-surplus Jeep up the path in six hours.  Then, in 1955, David Alexander and friends began constructing a trade route between Himeville in KwaZulu-Natal and Mokhotlong in Lesotho and, five years later, the Mokhotlong Mountain Transport Co began running eight-ton 4×4 freight trucks up and down the pass!  Luckily for us, in 1994, heavy traffic stopped using the pass and left it to the likes of us.  These days, the Pass is hyped up by the Saffer tourist board as an adrenalin-rush route and it certainly is beautiful and pretty winding and steep

but you'd have to be driving badly to come too much of a cropper!