KZN/Lesotho road trip: Day 20 - Ladybrand to Malealea

We were up early after another good night’s sleep. Andrew had to go to work so he left at 08H00 after saying goodbye. He, Mandy and Hannah have been fantastic hosts and we really enjoyed our time catching up.

We showered and packed the bakkie with fridge and freezer contents that we had stowed in their fridge. We were so happy that our washing was up to date now as we have been on the road for 3 weeks living out of suitcases.

We popped in to the local Spar in Ladybrand, as the meat we had had was really tender. We found everything that we needed and were very impressed with the availability and prices.

My phone, Vodacom, has finally cottoned on to the fact that I have International Roaming and somehow never seem to go over my allowable amount, so I needed to make calls to catch up before entering Lesotho. I called the girls and chatted and got all the news. Then I tried my Aunty May in Port Elizabeth again as we are wanting to visit on Friday 6^th April on our way through. I have been trying to get hold of her for weeks and becoming very concerned. I finally got to speak to her after waiting quite a few minutes for her to get to the phone……..

I was so shocked to hear that Aunty May had fallen and broken her hip while on holiday in the Drakensberg, she had returned home yesterday and has a carer. What a shock. We will pop in on Friday and take her supper.

We headed for the border, once again and without too much time, we were on our way – we bypassed Maseru – it is a tar road and in good condition so we made good time. This part of Lesotho is very different to the part of Lesotho that we travelled last week. The land is flatter and there is much more agriculture and more densely populated. Everywhere you look you see meilie fields and now and again, there are sunflower plant plantations. We turned off the tar road onto a gravel road through a notch in the mountains which is called the Gates of Paradise – on the way to Malealea. Malealea was originally a trading store that was started by Mervyn Smith – there is a plaque on a rock at the top of the pass, bearing the words he used to utter every time he returned home. “Wayfarer pause and look upon a gateway of paradise”. It is a truly beautiful view of the valley and this was our welcome.

Our welcome was to get better soon as when we entered Malealea Lodge we met Michael at reception who gave us a guided tour of all the facilities etc and then uttered the magic words…….”I have up-graded you” - we were shown to a lovely rondavel with en-suite bathroom, close to the communal kitchen, coffee-shop and evening entertainment and braai area. We are not sure why we were up-graded – either because our Besotho hut was next to the rowdy bunch of Free State 4 x 4’ers or because we mentioned Andrew’s name (he knows them all here) or because I mentioned that it is Steve’s birthday tomorrow – whatever the reason – YAY – it is lovely!!!!

We settled into our new home and once unpacked decided to do the 4 X 4 sundowner drive. I think we missed one of the turnoffs and ended up taking a different road, it was still a track, but took us along the edge of the gorge. It was slow going due to the state of the track. Imagine my surprise when I realized I was following a 25 seater bus which was dropping off passengers along the route. I could not believe this track was a regular bus route. The track eventually ends and we had to turn around with the bus on our tail. On the way back we found the correct track to turn off on and it was worse than the first one. It was getting late so we did not go too far before we turned around and drove back to Malealea. When we got back the choir was already in full swing and when they were finished, were followed by a band using homemade instruments. I had started a braai while they were busy performing and we enjoyed matured rump steak for supper. The avos we bought in Durban nearly 2 weeks ago are now ripe so we have started enjoying those as well.

There are not many people in the lodge at the moment so it is very quite which we hoped would ensure us a good night’s sleep.