Conquering Long Tom Pass

Today, 24 Feb.2020, I left the hotel in Joburg at 8 AM. We drove a bit to northeast, to pass Pretoria, the official capital.

Pretoria has many government offices, president (atm Cyril) office and house, high consulates and embassies… I also noticed many buildings are named in Dutch, like an apartment building called ParkZicht, Elon Gebou, etc. Building is gebou in africaans, so hopefully I can learn this new language too? In Pretoria we passed Paul Kruger house and church, the parliament building with beautiful park under where a massive giant statue of Nelson Mandela situated.

From Pretoria, we drove further to the east to Mpulanga area. Many cities are named either the same as Dutch or British cities, like Middelburg, Belfast, etc. We stopped for lunch at Dullstoorm a very old cities, built in 1930-ish. It is almost 2500 from the sea level, it is one of the coldest area in South Africa. It is also half way from Joburg to Kruger park, for the tourist to have lunch. Most restaurants serve pancake like in Dutch pancake house, the sweet and savoury one, like with lamb, bobotie, etc. I took trout salads which is quite big and bought 4 african girl keychains and a magnet. There are many nuts sellers around here for macadamia.

Along the journey today, although we were driving on the highways, it is quite green, farmland with some cows, goats, etc. In different places there are some small lakes in the middle of the meadow. It was a very green scenery, compared to my experience when I was in Zambia/ Zimbabwe.

Then we passed a couple of villages like Lydenburg to Long Tom Pass with the highest point at 2050 m above the sea level. Everywhere is green for agriculture and trees (jacaranda and pine trees). So after almost the whole day in the car (around 425 km driving) we arrived at Perry’s Bridge Hollow where I would stay here for 3 nights. It is only 8 km from the Kruger park gate. It is a nice hotel complex with swimming pool, shops, 3 different restaurants and it is a design hotel. The room is big and nice with 2 different bathroom, inside and outside.