LIKE IT ROUGH? OR A LITTLE MORE REFINED?
There are just two national parks in Lesotho. Both have the sort of magnificent naturescapes that will stir any traveller’s soul. But each is unique in the way it lures you towards its treasures
It’s quiet here. It’s not yet 6am and I am the only visitor in the park. But my solitude has nothing to do with the hour. In fact, if it wasn’t for the expedition team joining me a little later, I might well be the only visitor for months. Why? We’ll get to that in a bit. Right now, there is a soldier standing in the jeep track, flagging me down. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To see the Devil at sunrise,’ I say. ‘Please take me with you,’ says the soldier. He hops into my Amarok. I have been here before and I know where the soldier wants to go. And the soldier, Lehlohonolo Seboka, knows the Devil I want to see. We crunch along the winding gravel in high-range, at speed because I am late. Soon three jagged monoliths that jut out of the Drakensberg’s south-eastern flanks will catch the first rays of the day and glow a fiery copper in another new dawn over Lesotho. They are known as the Devil’s Knuckles, a marvellous sight for photographers. So perhaps I was being a little dramatic about my sunrise seance, but Sehlabathebe is the kind of place that lends itself to drama. As if on cue, a jackal pops its head out from the winter-gold grasses and scampers off with fresh quarry – perhaps a hare – clenched between its jaws. Not far from the Devil’s Knuckles is Lehlohonolo’s outpost, a border-patrol unit stationed beside the ruins of Jonathan’s Lodge: first a weekend escape for Lesotho’s second prime minister, Jonathan Leabua; then accommodation for visitors in the late 1980s; now a defunct shell of steel casement windows and dried putty that’s been promised resurrection, this time as a natural-history museum. Unlike me, Lehlohonolo is early. And so he hikes with me over the high-altitude plains towards the peaks, acting as an informal guide. We cross the Tsoelikane River, which will later culminate in a waterfall. Lehlohonolo tells me about the small ‘redfish’ – a redfin Maluti minnow once thought to be extinct but that was rediscovered in Lesotho’s high-altitude streams in 1971. Larger game has had a less auspicious resurrection, if any at all. Mountain reedbuck, eland and wild horses are the only shapes you’re likely to see on the horizon. And perhaps a Cape clawless otter if you’re unbelievably lucky. It’s in the skies where the treasures abound. There are siskins and pipits and rockjumpers and, most famous of all, Cape vultures. Lehlohonolo and I spend the morning exploring the still lakes and sandstone formations, peering at magnificent aloe ferox and red-hot pokers. We even glimpse a Eurasian hobby, a longdistance migrant that calls this part of the world home in the winter, just as the rest of my group arrives. The expedition, a team of shiny Amaroks, is here to see how the Maloti Drakensberg Transfrontier Programme is developing, of which Sehlabathebe National Park is now an official part. We’d come via Matabeng Pass – a 4x4-only track over the black mountains that line Lesotho’s eastern interior. It’s an adventure in itself and by far the most exciting way to reach the park. We spend the late morning visiting rock-art sites, where copper-red figures of San people dancing, hunting, fighting, collecting food and performing rituals adorn the cavern walls.
We’re also here to see the park’s new facilities. A grand new headquarters has been built at the park entrance and, a few kilometres in, a cluster of bright new sandstone buildings dot a hillside – the new Sehlabathebe Lodge. There are chalets, a restaurant, parking and even a conference centre but at the time of visiting electricity was still a problem. And that’s part of the reason why this place is so quiet. It’s been some years since the ‘new’ Sehlabathebe was built, but lack of resources and political sparring have set back its opening. As a result, with nowhere for visitors to stay inside the park, Sehlabathebe dropped off the radar. By the time you read this, I am assured that the lodge will finally be fully operational. It’s exciting news, but if the history is anything to go by, there’s still a chance you may find there is no electricity, you may be shown to the staff quarters if you want a hot shower, and you may have to ‘book’ your activities on an ad-hoc basis. But that is part of Sehlabathebe’s charm. If you’re happy to wing it, the park will reward you with a wilderness experience that will make you feel as if you’re the only person on the planet. I say go now if that’s the sort of experience you’re after; there’s a good chance you’ll have the whole place to yourself.