We got up at 3 am this morning to catch our flight back to South Africa. We arrived at the airport just as they were opening the doors. The lady and her daughter in front of us hadn’t brought their proof of Yellow Fever vaccination book with them so after much protesting by them they were redirected to another section to wait for someone more senior. Not sure what happened i.e. they gave them another jab or just took their word for it, but they ended up on our flight so it must have worked out for them.
Then it was a short hop to Burundi and then to Johannesburg. Picked up our bag from storage and grabbed on our car and headed to the Drakensburg. It’s over 300k but the first 250k is very straight highway at 120km/hr. My favourite sign on the way was Pedestrians ahead – no fences! Just like herding cattle 
The sign that got me every time was the ! Potholes – where the programmer in me read the sign as Not Potholes rather than Beware Potholes. We took the “recommended better road” to the park and boy was it a mess so I have no desire to travel the less recommended route.
We hit Harrismith just before 3pm and found a small supermarket to grab some essentials and then headed for the park gate. 4:15pm we hit the front gate and the people 2 cars up were having a good chat with the gate guard. I’m looking at my watch, knowing the office to our accommodation closes at 4:30pm. Waiting, waiting, we finally make it through the gate and up the hill to Thendele (which you’ll also see spelt Tendele and Thendale pronounced Ten-dar-lee) reception. It’s 4:32pm and luckily the slow people in front of us are also at reception being slow so we’ve made it in just as they’re closing. We grab our key and head up to our cabin for the next 4 nights – we’re right at the top of the cabins.
Now that we’ve unloaded – wow – the view from our front porch is absolutely breath-taking. I’ve seen pictures, but they really don’t do the view justice.
We are surrounded by massive, green cliff faces. Tomorrow I want to go up to Policemen’s helmet as it looks like a Bobby helmet and a cool looking rock.