Durban (Including Sani Pass visit)

We’ve made a few trips to South Africa now, but this was our very first time visiting Durban and we were super excited! One of our reasons for this trip, and more specifically Durban, was to visit friends that we had made from our time in Zambia. We hadn’t seen each other in 7 years so a catch up was long overdue.

I wanted to start by explaining this, as going back through our photos from our week in Durban, there wasn’t as many as I thought. I guess we were having too much fun with our friends. Anyways…..here are some of the highlights from Durban, as well as Sani Pass, which I’ve seperated out a little because it was an epic day of travel and pretty amazing.

Durban

First, to where we stayed in Durban. As we were catching up with friends, we wanted to stay close to them. So we found a guesthouse, Mythai Guesthouse, in the suburb of Morningside. It was comfortable, a large room and ensuite, surrounded by beautiful tropical gardens and backed on to the Florida Road strip of shops, cafes and bars. It was also pretty cheap. I think we paid something like 500AUD for the 5 nights we stayed. Would I have stayed there if we didn’t know anyone? Probably not. I think the Umhlanga area is much more an area for visitors, but for what we wanted, it was perfect.

One of the first things our friends took us to was the Durban city coast. We hired bikes for a couple of hours and rode the 5km path along the beach and city area and back. This was a great way to get a feel for the city. It was clear that at a point in time this part of Durban must have been amazing. It still is very nice albeit a bit run down in some areas. But I’d definitely recommend hiring bikes and doing this ride.

On a seperate evening our friends took us to the Umhlanga area for a night out. This is a pretty happening place with bars, restaurants, hotels, shops, etc. One of the highlights though was The Oyster Box. This is a an upmarket hotel with gorgeous restaurants and bar. We didn’t eat there, but from all accounts the breakfast and high tea are meant to be amazing; we did however a few cocktails as we watched the sun go down (or if there had been sun). They were awesome cocktails, so good that I failed to even get a photo, remembering on our final drink when the light was gone :-(. Seriously, if in Durban you need to visit The Oyster Box.

The Florida Road area where we stayed was also a nice place to hang out, although again, I failed to take many photos. We did have dinner there on a couple of nights and had no trouble finding great coffee. Actually, a new favourite for me became Red Lattes - Yum! Rooibos tea with warm frothed milk, the best!

And of course, when in Durban eat Bunny Chow! Clearly it does not picture well (below) but I kind of need to include the photo because when I describe it to people, they don’t really get it. Basically Bunny Chow is a South African fast food dish consisting of a hollowed-out loaf of white bread filled with curry (Durban Curry). It originated among Indian South Africans of Durban and has a bit of a zing. Messy but good.

One of the other highlights was a visit out to the Natal Midlands. This area is frequented by domestic tourists and I can see why! The landscape was green and mountainous, there were lots of places to stop for arts and craft, food and drink, wineries, etc. We stopped for lunch at a place called Piggly Wiggly Country Village, which you can easily hang out at for 2-3 hours.

The Natal Midlands is also the area where Nelson Mandela was captured all those years ago, prior to being sent away to Robbin Island for 27 years.

The Nelson Mandela Capture Site was really well put together with a small visitor centre/ museum on his life and the below pictured sculpture. What was amazing about the sculpture is that close up, and just walking around it, it’s just a whole lot of black posts. But standing back in the right position it makes out his face, which comes up even better on a camera than when I was looking at it.

One more highlight in Durban was the Durban Botanic Gardens which had lots of unqiue trees and flowers, and was just generally a nice place to be.

Sani Pass

Sani Pass is a mountain pass located in the west of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa on the road between Underberg, KwaZulu-Natal and Mokhotlong, Lesotho.

The route up Sani Pass starts at 1544 m, and climbs 1332 vertical metres to an altitude of 2876 m. The road is a steep gravel road with gradients which can be difficult to drive in bad weather and may be covered with snow and ice in winter. Only 4x4 vehicles are permitted to drive the road and there are tour operators that run guided tours up and down the pass which is what we did.

Our friends booked it on our behalf, so I’m not 100% sure of the operator name (I think Roof of Africa Tour), but it cost us 75AUD for the day per person which included the ride up the hill and back from the town of Himeville and a ‘cultural’ visit in the village at the top of the pass, Mokhotlong in Lesotho.

And yes, you do technically go into the country of Lesotho, so you claim a visit to another country and border stamp in the process! Make sure you bring your passport.

The ride up/ down Sani Pass is AMAZING!

There is almost no traffic and all you can see are green mountains and a stream running through them. It is slow going, as mentioned the road is windy and rough, but as passengers we could just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Once we had our border stamps we stopped by the village of Mokhotlong where we were welcomed by traditional dance and shown into one of the local huts, served warm bread and the local beer - an interesting flavour, haha!

From the village we made our way to the local pub, for beer we were a little more familiar with, which also just happens to be Africa’s highest pub.

It was a bit chilly when we were there to sit outside and enjoy the view, we tried for all of 2 minutes before heading back in. But I can imagine on a slightly warmer day enjoying a couple of cold drinks while looking out at that view.

And on cooler days, sitting inside by the fire with a glass of wine!

The pub was awesome and the surrounds lovely :-)

We had amazing day checking out Sani Pass. I think if we were to give any advice on this one it would be to not try and squeeze it into a day if you are coming from Durban. The trip from Durban was just over 3 hours each way to our starting point of Himeville, making it a long day. We had good company in the car, but for others I’d definitely recommend staying in or near Himeville the night before and after Sani Pass, and just enjoying the surrounds which are absolutely beautiful!