GOOD AS GOLD

Golden Gate Highlands National Park has clear river pools in summer, snow-covered peaks in winter, sandstone cliffs, bearded vultures, hiking trails and great places to stay. You never knew the Free State was so spectacular, did you?

The Free State is often compared unfavourably to other provinces. People are quick to point out that it’s flat and dusty and that the best road is the N1 because it’s the quickest way out. And the poor Cheetahs! (Although, what people forget is that when the Sharks, Bulls and Lions players go home to their mothers, they all go back to the Free State.) Come autumn, however, the humble Free State is one of the most scenic places in the country, especially on a windless day when the poplar trees are etched against a pastel-blue sky. And then there’s the jewel in the Free State crown: Golden Gate Highlands National Park, where the Drakensberg and the Malutis snuggle up side by side. One visit and you’ll fall in love – I guarantee it. It’s autumn when I visit and by the time my tent is pitched at Glen Reenen rest camp, the sun has dipped the poplar trees in gold. I’m surrounded by towering sandstone cliffs, the most impressive of which is the famous Brandwag Buttress.

It’s the middle of the week and the campsite is nearly empty. There’s peace and quiet in abundance, and even more on the Blesbok Loop (6,7 km). The road climbs onto a plateau. I pull over and get out. The park doesn’t have dangerous animals lying in wait so you’re free to walk around. The landscape is huge and the air is cool. A rain shower rolls in from Lesotho and a light drizzle sifts down. Then the sun pushes the clouds aside and sets the grass and cliffs on fire. A rainbow unfurls and a choir of jackals yelps in the distance. Is there another place in South Africa as beautiful?

Of course, there wasn’t always a park here. In the 1850s, the Orange Free State and neighbouring Basutoland were locked in a battle over the area, then known as the Rooiberg. After a peace treaty was signed in 1869, the Free State government marked out farms and sold them to secure the border with Basutoland. In 1878, the Van Reenen family

bought one of those farms, called Vuurland. When they arrived on their new property late in the afternoon and saw how the setting sun made the sandstone glow, they renamed the farm Golden Gate. In 1962, the government bought the farm and in 1963 it was declared a national park. Golden Gate is one of our smaller national parks – 116 km² – and there aren’t hundreds of game-viewing loops. The next morning I drive the only other circular route in the park, Oribi Loop (4,2 km), which winds through hills that seem to roll all the way to the ends of the earth. Fields of grass shudder in the wind and the odd wildebeest lifts its head. I pull over on another plateau at a hide overlooking a vulture restaurant. Today it’s just me and a pile of picked-clean bones, but the visitors’ book describes sightings of white-backed and rare bearded vultures, and scavenging jackals. Further along the Oribi Loop, I pull over at a lookout point called Drakensberg View. The monumental cliffs of the Royal Natal National Park peek through the clouds.

Good day, Chief

The R712 between Clarens and Phuthaditjhaba goes through Golden Gate, which means there’s usually some traffic. Next to the road, on the eastern side of the park, you’ll find the Basotho Cultural Village. It doesn’t look too promising when I turn off, but guide Jack Mopeli is there to welcome me. The aim of the village is to show visitors how Basotho lifestyle has changed over the last 400 years. The people you’ll meet in the village live in Phuthaditjhaba and work here as “actors” during the day. First we visit the chief to get permission to see the houses in the village. The chief is wearing blesbok and serval hides and a traditional hat, and he nods as he sips on sorghum beer when Jack addresses him in Sesotho. Jack tells me how the Basotho people traded clothes made of animal hides for blankets, and how they eventually replaced their mud huts with brick structures. The first British settlers and the Voortrekkers

SHELTERING STONE. These days, the Rooiberg section of Golden Gate is a peaceful place. During the Anglo-Boer War, however, Boer women and children hid in the caves in a bid to avoid being sent to British concentration camps.