It is at nightfall when the lights come on that you notice, from a distance, that there is a sizeable village tucked into the lap of towering Mariepskop. By day you have to go up close to see the houses hidden among the trees.
The name-board says Kampersrus, and travellers on the road running next to the base of the Blyde River Canyon section of the Drakensberg can easily mistake this as referring only to the garage and the few buildings along the roadside.
Heidi Lee Smith, publisher of the Lowveld’s Kruger2Canyon newspaper, calls the people living there the “forest fairies”.
You get the sense you will see them only for as long as they want you to see them.
The houses are set well off the road in woods that rapidly change with the elevation from low bush-willow, leadwoods, acacias and the like to enormous forest types with an assortment of ferns covering the ground under them and with patches of lichen on their trunks.
The street ends in a loop round the Mariepskop Primary School. Behind it soars the red cliffs of Mariepskop, towering 1 944 metres above sea level, and across its green sports fields in front stretches the Lowveld’s Hoedspruit-Timbavati region towards Kruger National Park and the Lebombo Mountains appearing through the haze in the distance. “God’s spoiling us,” acknowledged Renier de Meyer, the school’s principal.
The hamlet was founded in the 1940s on a farm named Bedford whose owner, Broer Maré, gave it its name, meaning “campers’ rest” because he thought it an ideal stay-over for travellers crossing the mountain range into the Lowveld.
The spectacular Blyde River Canyon is around the corner, Kruger Park’s Orpen Gate is a half-hour’s drive away and the Kapama Reserve with its cheetah breeding centre is down the road. Across the road is the Bombyx Mori Silk factory and shop where fine fabrics and lotions are on offer.
Next door is the famed Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, the name of which is said to mean the “big, big battle”. It refers to a clash that took place in the vicinity in 1864 when the Swazis were convincingly beaten by a Bapedi tribe led by Chief Maripi Mashile after whom the Mariepskop buttress was named.
A day’s circuit route takes you across the Blyde River past numerous curio and fruit stalls, through the Strydom Tunnel and to a cluster of curio stalls just beyond where Michael Khumako will, for a fee, point out the tiny shapes of the rare Taita falcons breeding high up the cliff above the road.
From there the route takes you down the scenic Abel Erasmus pass and on to the escarpment’s Panorama Route with its spectacular viewing sites such as God’s Window, Bourke’s Luck Potholes, the Pinnacle and the Three Rondavels. You then swing back via the charming town of Graskop and down pretty Konwyn Pass.
Highest up the mountain slope of the Kampersrus lodges is Amafu, meaning clouds. With its back to the cliffs, and with sweeping views over the Lowveld, it is a distinctly upmarket lodge set among the rocks under low, Lowveld combretum trees.
Further down is Little Bush Lodge, owned by Stephan Kemp, a grandson of the hamlet’s founder, Broer Maré. He has constructed a charming rock-and-thatch lodge among the trees, with bridges crossing a pond where bridal couples like to pose for pictures against a backdrop of bush and the towering mountain.
For more information:
l www.jolyne.co.za; tel 083 388 0432
l www.amafuforestlodge.co.za; tel 076 098 7985
l Little Bush Lodge – tel 082 878 9329 or 015 795 5015 - Saturday Star