This past Friday we drove an easy – with not one pothole in sight – four hours from Durbs to Kiara Resort nestled in the striking, sandstone Maluti / Maloti Mountains between the Golden Gate Highlands National Park and the charming village of Clarens in the Free State.

From the moment we left Bergville we spotted herds of pure black wildebeest, small oribi antelope, eland antelope, blesbok antelope, springbok antelope, mountain reedbuck and zebra freely roaming the vast open scrublands at every meandering turn.

The temperature reached 34 degrees Celsius before midday. The car’s air-conditioning turned up to maximum failed at providing relief from the incredibly dry heat. And this is autumn?

With just over an hour to spare before check-in time at 3pm, we refuelled at the Golden Gate Hotel. While admiring the sandstone mountain range from the recently renovated hotel restaurant, we enjoyed a light, great value for money, lunch.

Kiara Resort’s reception area appeared in great need of a spruce up. Fortunately, the apartment style self-catering chalet allocated to us wasn’t in the same state as the reception area. Clean, new and modern, the spacious chalet, comfortable for six adults, deserved a three-plus-star rating.

The massive grounds catered for children and also provided adult only areas, such as both the lounge with  a pool table and rather small indoor swimming pool for over eighteens. A gaggle of geese, brace of ducks and husk of rabbits all had free reign of the lawns. The behaviour of rabbits fascinated me for minutes at a time. I don’t know why I never desired one for a pet in my younger years; didn’t everyone have one at some stage?

The Trout & Mallard, an independently run restaurant, in the midst of the main entertainment area of Kiara Resort served delicious smoked trout with flavours that pleasantly seized all of my senses.

After the porter had unpacked the car for us, we explored the route for our early morning hike that started at the bottom of the property. With the sun setting, turning the sky from a dusty orange into a deep purple, I was suddenly only interested in photographing such sweeping beauty.

By 6am the following morning, we embraced the climb up the mountain that sheltered Kiara Resort, encountering a protected rock with Bushmen paintings. We hiked along the ridge, up to the fence line, down to the cliff face and then zigzagged along the manmade path to the dam. Graded strenuous by the resort, mild by us, it took us one and a half hours to complete a distance of three kilometres. Of course I had to stop every five minutes to photograph the stunning vistas and absorb its all-encompassing tranquillity. With not another being in sight, I was not in any rush for the hike to end.

The next morning we tackled Mushroom Rock in the heart of the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, which I shall save for my next blog post…