Mpumalanga Panorama Route Details

Route Description

Introduction

The Panorama Route is one of the most beautiful and popular travel destinations in South Africa. The views are spectacular and landscape stunning. The road network is superb making it a comfortable self-drive tour that can be combined with a safari in the Kruger National Park. This also allows visitors to break up their safari to enjoy some varied landscape, history and people.

When to go

The best time to visit this area is during the dry winter months from May to September. Days are warm and dry and nights cool to cold (but dry). Malaria risk is also much lower at this time of year.

Detailed description

The Panorama Route is one of the most beautiful and popular travel destinations in South Africa. It leads through the rugged mountain range of the northern Drakensberg in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. The Panorama Route passes the north-eastern part of the Great Escarpment, the inland plateau declines abruptly and steeply and opens up fantastic views of the plains of the Lowveld a thousand metres below. This view is most reliable in the dry winter months. At other times the spectacle is often impaired, since the escarpment is a barrier for the clouds coming from the east, rising at this point and bringing a lot of rain.

An area of great history and scenery than anywhere in the world, and a journey to South Africa would not be complete without a visit to this gold and coal mining towns. Attractions range from trout fishing towns to old wagon routes and monuments over the famous Long Tom pass to the picturesque towns of Lydenburg, Dullstroom, Sabie and Graskop and pioneer mining village of Pilgrim's Rest in 1870.

Travel through "Gods playground" to Gods Window overlooking the green Lowveld. The most spectacular stretch of the Panorama Route is the Blyde River Canyon. From many well-positioned vantage points one has a view of the 33 km long gorge, which starts at "Bourke's Luck Potholes" and ends at the "Three Rondavels". The Potholes are very impressive rock formations that were shaped millions of years ago by erosion. The bizarre swirl holes developed when the once rapid river carried masses of sand and debris.