Mpumalanga Panorama Route

The Escarpment Edge

Mpumalanga means “place where the sun rises” in Siswati, and the Panorama Route along the Drakensberg Escarpment earns that name every morning. The views from the rim are into a 600-metre drop, across a sea of green subtropical bush, toward the flat Lowveld stretching to Mozambique. They are among the most spectacular views in Africa.

This is our longest tour, and deliberately so. The distance from Cape Town to Mpumalanga is 1,700 km one way, and the route matters as much as the destination. We ride north through the Karoo and Free State, crossing the Vaal River and climbing into the Highveld before the land suddenly drops away at the escarpment edge.

Graskop is the gateway to the Panorama Route — a small town on the plateau with the best pancakes you’ll eat on any motorcycle tour. From here we ride the R534 that traces the escarpment, stopping at God’s Window, where the road ends at a viewpoint platform jutting into the mist 1,730 metres above the Lowveld.

Bourke’s Luck Potholes are where the Blyde River meets the Treur in a series of cylindrical rock formations carved by water over millions of years. The colours — ochre, rust, and deep green water — are extraordinary. The canyon itself is the world’s third largest, and unlike the Grand Canyon or the Blyde, you can ride along the top of it for 30 km with a view into the abyss the entire way.

Pilgrim’s Rest is a preserved gold-rush town from the 1870s — the corrugated iron buildings and general store have been maintained exactly as they were. Lunch here before we drop off the escarpment via the Long Tom Pass into the Lowveld heat.

The Kruger gateway towns of Hazyview and Phalaborwa form the final section. We don’t ride inside the park itself — this is a biking tour, not a game drive — but the bush atmosphere changes completely at this altitude and latitude, and big game country is palpably close.