Then we went down by 3 Rondavels View Point and Lowveld View, which were all terrific spots to take in the gorgeous scenery. It was lots of mountains and valleys with rivers running through and unique rock formations. It's definitely worth making the trip to see. Here are a couple of pictures:
3 Rondavels View point:
Then we went to an area known as Bourke's Luck Potholes. Wow, this was a pleasant surprise! We weren't really sure what it was but it was really cool. Over centuries the river activity has formed dramatic and unique patterns in the rock. You cross over a couple of bridges and look down over the waterfall and some of the unique formations, and then you are at the top where you can hop around on the rock in between the water and also sit down and put your feet in the water if you want. The whole area is lovely. We also saw some baboons running around near the entrance as well.
Then we went to check out some waterfalls: Berlin Falls and Lisbon Falls, which are less than 10 minutes apart. They are both pretty and worth stopping by if you're in the area. One funny thing happened- when we pulled into Lisbon Falls the guy at the entrance laughed and noted we were driving a BMW. We looked in the parking lot and there were 4 other BMWs! I'm not sure if everyone else was "upgraded" as well or if there's just an uncommon number of BMW drivers in the area, but got a laugh and parked right in line with the others to snap a picture.
Berlin Falls:
Lisbon Falls:
Then we moved on to two areas known as "wonder view" and "God's window". It was a bit hazy so we weren't that impressed with "Wonder View", and similarly with "God's window" we thought it didn't live up to the hype. (With a name like "God's window" we felt it needed to be pretty special). Maybe we were just spoiled with the amazing views we'd seen all day, but we thought the ones earlier in the day were better.
God's View:
Our last stop was not far from there either, called Pinnacle Rock. It lived up to its name; it had a huge tower-like rock formation standing alone in the middle of a gorge. Again, nice views but kind of hard to be super impressed at that point.
10 minutes later we made it to our airbnb in Graskop, which turned out to be more of a small hotel. We checked in and got lots of advice from Ian on what we should do tomorrow. We dropped off our stuff and went to get dinner. Graskop is a quaint little town so we walked into the center of town to find something to eat. Unfortunately we apparently went out at a bad time, as lots of places were closing up and other more dinner-like places hadn't yet opened. We just barely got into a place called the Silver Spoon, which is a pancake place, and placed our order right before the kitchen closed. There are a couple of pancake establishments here and it seems to be a thing, so I decided to try some. They had both sweet and savory pancakes, but they turned out to be more like crepes. I ordered a simple sugar & cinnamon one and was surprised when it came out like a crepe, and that I didn't get syrup. It was decently good though and we were just excited to eat. We made it back to our place just as it was getting dark and settled in for the night.
This morning we grabbed some breakfast at the other pancake place in town and then we checked out and hit the road. We started at Mac Mac Falls which was a pretty impressive waterfall. You could also pay to go down to the pool at the bottom and even swim if you like but we opted to not do that. We also checked out Sabie Falls since it was on our way but it wasn't as impressive as Mac Mac.
Mac Mac Falls:
Then we really just hit the road towards Johannesburg and took the route through Long Tom Pass, which was a nice drive through the mountains and nature reserves. We stopped at Alzu Petrolport on the way for some gas which was a really interesting place to stop. Right outside the station they had a little game reserve where you could see all kinds of animals: zebras, rhinos, water buffalo, ostriches, emus, all sorts of different antelope. Matt said he could even see them from a window in the men's restroom! So that was kind of neat. There were also lots of fast food places there so we grabbed some lunch before heading off.
We checked into our airbnb right outside Jo'burg. It's in a super nice house with a very friendly couple and their two dogs- both yellow labs and one is a puppy! We chatted with them for a bit before starting a load of laundry. Then we went out and grabbed some dinner before turning in for the night.
It's worth noting that almost all of the scenic places we stopped at over the last two days charged a small fee to visit- usually between R10/car or R20/person, so never a lot (10 rand is less than $1). But it was a bit annoying and went through our cash pretty quickly.
Tomorrow we fly to Botswana for Safari #2! This one is 8 nights long! I have no idea if I'll have any sort of wifi so I may not post anything until after the safari. If that's the case, Happy Mother's Day to all of the incredible mothers in my life, and especially to my mom! Love you all!
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