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*To Hilton through to arrival at Nieu Bethesda  Above: Looking out from Clarens at 1850 metres (more than 6000 ft) towards mountains in Northern Lesotho reaching up to more than 2800 metres (9280 ft) but first we have to get there from Fugitives Drift ... You can try as much as you like in South Africa to gain foreknowledge when planning routes. Stuff like Google can help but only up to a point. After that it's down to asking locals. And when I say locals I'm taking about friendly souls who have their ears very close to the ground, preferably someone who's travelled your intended route in the past week or so. And so it was when heading off from Fugitives Drift in the hopes of reaching Hilton (a matter of 135km as the crow flies) before sunset during daylight that same day. The logical road would have taken us via Greytown, a distance of 205km through some spectacular countryside. The additional 70km would be a small price to pay for the scenic route. I'd done it many times. All tarred. I asked a number of the Drift locals separately; if they'd been standing together there would have been a chorus. "Go via Dundee and Ladysmith," was the unanimous advice. "But that's an extra 70 kays," I protested. A certain amount of touching the sides of noses ensued. "Tugela Ferry on a Friday is a nightmare," someone volunteered. "Is it dangerous?" I ventured but no-one seemed to think danger was a particular problem. "The traffic jams are a massive problem," a few of my advisers concurred, "it can take literally hours to get through the market stalls and it's very unpredictable." We travelled via Dundee and Ladysmith and it was predictably boring. Now we're at Hilton We presented ourselves to Shan's[1] brother Patrick and sister-in-law Susie, in the early afternoon. Their house has breathtaking views down the valley towards Pietermaritzburg (a.k.a. Sleepy Hollow). Roger and Sián were delighted that they were to be housed in the Deales' separate cottage which boasted a bath with a view. Above; (l to r) trees, trees and more trees ... the view from The Edge, the Deale homestead; if a clear day occurs, which it occasionally does, Pietermaritzburg can be seen 9km down the wooded valley. For those who don't know Hilton, it is an attractive village approximately 78 km as the crow flies inland from the Indian Ocean (Durban is about the closest city on the coast) and is at an altitude of 1080 m (3540 ft). For UK friends, this is almost exactly the altitude of the summit of Mount Snowdon (1085 m) and a mere 265 m short of the top of the UK's highest peak, Ben Nevis. Locally the area is known as the KZN Midlands. It is home to a couple of South Africa's premier private schools. In the village itself is St Anne's Diocesan College, which was founded in Pietermaritzburg in 1877, before moving to Hilton in 1904. The other place is Hilton College, a 9km walk away in its own rural estate. It was founded in 1872. Those who have read Part 2 of this saga will be aware that I spent my secondary school years at this institution, the subject of Doug Rattray's barbed comment, quoted in Part 2. But this is not a diatribe. I went there from 1965-1968. My laat-lammetjie[2] brother was head boy there in 1983. In my more senior years at the school, when girls were foremost in our minds, we used to walk those 9 km after lunch on a Sunday to spend a few minutes on the St Anne's lawn trying awkwardly to make conversation under the watchful eye of a duty mistress. In theory we then walked back. It was strictly forbidden to hitch a ride but if one's mate happened to have a sympathetic Gran living in the village ... tea and cakes and a lift back to the school gates might have been in the equation. However one looks at it, however, it was a mission. If we left at 1:00 pm and were particularly fit (which we were) we could probably get there by 2:30 pm (a bit sweaty in full school uniform). And then, in theory, we could spend an hour before departing in order to arrive within the deadline to be back at school. Why am I telling you all this? Bonds were formed in those callow days. Now, Shan and I were taking our friends Sián and Roger to meet my brother-in-law and his wife, whom I'd first met on one of these hikes 56 years previously. Who knows whether I'd have even met my friend Susie's husband's sister, now my wife of almost 44 years. Now we were about to sit down to dinner in their Hilton home before exploring the area the next day. Above: Tucking into delicious oxtail at Chez Deale [the Edge]; Patrick a.k.a. Packet, head honcho of the Deale clan, in a typically expansive and questioning lawyer's pose during a breakfast break en route around the Natal Midlands. So how do you fit 6 people in one car, albeit a spacious one, for a 120 km circumnavigation of the Midlands? The answer is that you don't because the head honcho has now become a born again biker, albeit more in the tradition of a Peter Fonda easy rider than a Hell's Angel. We headed off in this strange bigbike/SUV convoy, via breakfast, for our first port of call ... to show off the alma mater to Sián and Roger. I believe they liked what they saw and enjoyed meeting one or two of Susie's relatives gathered around the cricket ground, including eldest brother, Glynne (a.k.a.Thug #1[3]), always a brilliant raconteur. From there we attempted to keep up with Packet as he thundered up a section of the Midlands Meander on his 900cc Triumph Bonneville to the Brahman Hills Weddings, Event, Hotel & Spa[4]. Apart from a jolly decent lunch, this venue also provided cover from a spectacular thunderstorm, another feature of this area of KZN. Unluckily for our intrepid biker the storm was not as short-lived as many of these regional downpours often are, continuing throughout lunch and all of the remaining time it took to return the 45 km home. We took the N3 Freeway and it can't have been pleasant. Shan, now at the wheel of our car, was beside herself at her brother's predicament but he was typically stoical when we finally reached our destination at The Edge, shrugging the episode off to life's experience. Above: Statues gracing the extensive gardens at the Brahman Hills just avant le déluge, the thundery sky announcing its intentions; Packet in a dry African shirt showing off his rain-spattered 2008 Triumph Bonneville Speedmaster 900 (to accord the beast its full title). All too soon we had to resume our journey to the Southwest. We had "finalised" our route to Nieu Bethesda in the Eastern Cape province after some faffing about although we would still have to attend to some details once we reached our stopover. We needed to access some of that local knowledge mentioned at the beginning of this blog! Faffing about Originally we'd planned to travel to the Eastern Cape via theTranskei, circumnavigating Lesotho on the Southern side and spending two nights in the shadow of the mountains at Rhodes. However the purveyor of the accommodation we'd booked and paid for cancelled at the last moment. As this was the second time lodgings had been withdrawn from us in the small town we decided not to tempt disappointment a third time and made last minute arrangements to stay over in Clarens, which borders on the Northern corner of Lesotho. Lesotho is not known as the mountain kingdom for nothing. One more or less has to go around it unless making a safari out of the experience, preferably in a pretty robust 4x4. Of course, you could also take the long way around on motorways (for most of the way) but then you might as well be anywhere on the planet on a route of mind-numbing tedium.  Above: Two of the more scenic routes ... which way around? We were more or less forced to choose the top route via Clarens. Although, even once we got to Clarens there would be decisions to be made. The road into the Eastern Cape skirting around Lesotho had been dreadful for years but we lived in hope that the highways authorities couldn't have kept on ignoring what had become a travesty. If the local advice was negative we could always detour via Bethlehem and Bloemfontein and the afforementioned tedium of the N1. In the mean time we could travel up the picturesque Oliviershoek Pass and alongside the Sterkfontein Dam to check out the Golden Gate, a small national park that punches above its weight in scenery. Then we could enjoy an exceedingly pleasant time eating, drinking and shopping in the attractive town itself. It's a bit of a mini-mecca for art and things arty and a broad choice of places to eat. Always with the option of pausing for inner thoughts while gazing at the mountains leering out from the Lesotho Malotis. Wine, beer, coffee in hand: whichever might fulfil the happy chance of the hour . Above: I guess Roger took the first and last of these, the rest are random pics of places that appeared to be attractive and or quirky ... Clarens is the kind of place where, if you avoid weekends (it's close enough to Johannesburg for quick visits), a group of 4 can occupy themselves jointly or severally in peaceful, attractive surroundings in the town or in the Golden Gate park, which has spectacular rock formations and whose closest "gate" is about 20 minutes away by car. We chose to veg out for the day. Roj sat in the park and read his book while various permutations of Sián, Shan and I strolled about. Some shopping happened and yours truly succumbed to a gorgeous painting and Shan bought some loud baggy trousers. A few books also called us in the wonderful Bibliophile Bookshop. As mentioned before, it's an arty atmosphere. We were staying in the centre at The Highlander so straying back to base occasionally for an appropriate beverage or an afternoon nap were also essential. There were additional benefits, too, as things turned out. Above: (clockwise from top left) It was impossible to resist this almost Fauvist rendition of the Golden Gate topography in the Addy & Hoyle Art Gallery, painted by Lyn Hoyle. There were some tempting huge ones but the painting had to find its way back to the UK in the passenger compartment of an aeroplane; interesting juxtaposition of signs at this gate; sunset of Lesotho as seen from our home for two nights; a home that boasted an impressive array of Scotch Whisky. The knowledge, vis-à-vis local travel Our base in the centre of Clarens was a bit of a local hangout, which revealed the other benefit of straying back there. We still had a decision to make as mentioned earlier in this chapter. Would we have to leg it to the N1 for the next section of our journey the following day or could we risk the more scenic route skirting Lesotho via Ficksburg and Aliwal North? "The Ficksburg route has got much better recently, ja," a helpful local advised. "Actually there's quite a story about how that came about ... the local farmers and taxi operators [strange bedfellows, historically - author's note[5]] became so pissed off with the condition of the road that they got together to pressure the roads department and became involved themselves to improve the situation." "So you reckon it's OK?" I enquired, perhaps with a little doubt in my tone. "Ja, go for it," our benefactor encouraged. And to a great extent it was OK, much better than falling asleep at the wheel on the N1. Occasionally the odd distraction popped up ... Above: it wasn't just the state of the roads that caused the occasional need for caution on the journey ... livestock is an accepted occupational challenge on SA's rural roads The roads more or less lived up to our local informant's predictions with many many mended potholes causing a slight ripple rather than potential suspension-breaking and or tyre shredding torture. There was a relatively small blip (around 50 km) somewhere between Ladybrand and Zastron where the cabal hadn't completed its mission and had spread sand over the tarmac. This mitigated the effect of the potholes and worked reasonably well for our car that had proved itself pretty capable on South Africa's disintegrating tarmac. That being said, it was a relief to return to proper tarmac and one couldn't help wondering what would happen to the sand given one of those dramatic rainstorms that are regular occurrences in this part of the world. Above: these two similar formations of typical Karoo outcrops seem to form entrance and an exit gates to the 500 km "bit in the middle" between Clarens and Nieu Bethesda. Middelburg remained an obstacle beyond the exit gate in the picture above, the town having been a necessary evil to fill up with fuel before the last increasingly attractive stretch to the gates of petrol-free Nieu Bethesda. Coming next Happy days and amazing serendipity in Nieu Bethesda. [Endnotes]:
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