We said goodbye to Kay and John this morning. Khumbalani Lodge has been great to us and made us feel at home. We drove to Eshowe where we had time to visit the Dlinza Forest and view the Zululand countryside from a 40m high broadwalk and platform in the forest. Here are some pictures:
We drove north from the Durban region into the southern Drakensberg mountains and following a wrong turn, a few dirt tracks and some stunning hazy mountains, we arrived at the Sani Pass Backpackers. This hostel is rustic but very charming, with named rooms (ours is called 'Ibis' after the bird) and a communal bathroom. The sense of isolation is immediate but something to which I am now accustomed. I took several pictures of the backpackers:
Here is our room:
We were arriving as dark fell and were fed chicken curry. The hostel has an almost alpine, high altitude ranch feel to it. The rooms are motel-like, situated around a courtyard in a two-sided line. The bathroom has two private showers with changing areas and one outside shower, which I opted to use:
We also had a mountain view from the lodge:
When you stand outside here you can see the vast number of stars filling the entire sky like a planetarium. You can see a section of the Milky Way and multiple nebulae which would be impossible in an area with higher ground light pollution. I couldn't tell you the constellations as I'm used to northern hemisphere stars, but Orion sits upside down here. After a couple of beers under the stars I went to bed, ready for a big day tomorrow.
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