Today we moved into the Kingdom of Lesotho, a magical little independent mountain country surrounded by South Africa and mostly many thousands of meters above it. To get to it we go up the very scenic, and a little challenging, Sani Pass, which is something of an Overlander iconic drive, so it had to be on my list for this trip. In reality the pass has mostly been tamed, tar road to the South African border post and then about 10km of rough mountain road, which they are busy repairing, so a good workout for Nelsons low range gear box but nothing to worry us.
Early morning at our camp at the base of the pass, promising blue sky at dawn as we get organised for an early startThe mountain view as we head up the past the peaks on the right are the “twelve apostles” a popular walking trailThe early part of the pass after the South African border postWe head up the pass and the tight turns ahead of us become visiblePhotos always make rough roads appear easy but this view up to the twists of the pass above shows why we were in our low ratio box moving slowly over the deep rutsHalf way up the pass we stop for a breather and to let the gearbox cool downNear the top the pass has a lot of tight hairpins most of which we managed to get round, one did require a three point turnwe climb 1332 meters on the pass itself which tops out at 2876 high, just a few miles later we are up to 3193m starting our trip around the kingdom in the sky…
Celtic Rover
