Lookout points
1. Wapadasberg Pass (Eastern Cape)
When I drive home to Craddock, I enjoy stopping on top of the Wapadasberg Pass (R61) to drink coffee or eat something. You look west, with the Karoo plains below you and mountains of various sorts behind that in the direction of Nieu-Bethesda, Graaff-Reinet and Richmond. Above it all rises the Kompasberg which is 2 052 m high.
2. Lion’s Head (Western Cape)
About once or twice a year I climb Lion’s Head in Cape Town. It’s an easy climb, and you can easily do it in three hours up-and-down. The view from the top is even better than from on top of Table Mountain, because from Lion’s Head you can see 360º around you – the city bowl, Table Mountain, Green Point and the harbour, Seapoint, Clifton, Camps Bay, the Twelve Apostles and even as far as Hout Bay.
3. Lake Kivu (Rwanda)
Late in 2008 I toured through Southern Rwanda for a week, just with a backpack and without any fixed plans. I stayed two nights at Kibuye at the Hotel Centre Bethanie, which is right on the shore of Lake Kivu, which is full of small islands, clear water and jolly boatmen. You can just sit on the hotel’s stoep with a large flask of coffee and read – everything that is striking about Lake Kivu happens right in front of you.
4. Spreetshoogte Pass (Namibia)
Just north of Solitaire, the D1275 branches off from the C14 and the Spreetshoogte Pass is just a little further on the D1275. When you are at the top, look back west and see the Namib in the distance with beautiful mountains and plains and rocks between you and the horizon.
5. World’s View (Zimbabwe)
It’s near the Troutbeck Hotel in the Nyanga National Park, one of Zimbabwe’s most spectacular parks. You drive to the edge of the escarpment and then look west, gazing down at the valley floor so far beneath you, it looks like it’s actually part of another world. Vast.
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