The name Lydenburg means town of suffering, and there is real history behind it. In the 1840s, Voortrekker families settled at Ohrigstad, in the lowveld, but malaria drove them out, and in 1849 they moved up to higher, healthier ground and founded a new town, which they named in memory of what they had endured. Today Lydenburg sits at around 1,400 metres in the Mpumalanga highveld, a quiet market town of about twenty thousand people, with a wide main street, tree-lined avenues and a feel of farming country, where cattle and timber matter more than tourists.
Its most remarkable treasure is far older. In 1957, a boy found fragments of terracotta heads near the town, and archaeologists later pieced together seven large hollow heads made by Iron Age farmers around fifteen centuries ago, among the oldest known sculptures in southern Africa. Replicas are displayed in the local museum, while the originals are kept elsewhere, and the heads, with their strange, stylised faces, are a reminder that the story of this region began long before the Voortrekkers.
The surroundings are big and open. To the west lie grassy hills, trout streams and the cold uplands around Dullstroom, popular with fly fishermen, and to the east the land drops abruptly over the Drakensberg escarpment toward the lowveld, in a series of passes with spectacular views. The town is the start of the climb on the R37 to Sabie over the Long Tom Pass, one of the highest roads in the province, which makes it a natural place to stop for a meal and to fill the tank before a day in the mountains.
The weather can be changeable. Summer brings afternoon thunderstorms with hail and lightning, and winter nights are cold, with frost on the grass, though days are generally clear and dry. Mist rolls in on the high ground, so a waterproof layer is a good idea at any time of year. Lydenburg has all the basic services, with fuel stations, workshops, banks and cafés, and a few guesthouses that cater for people passing through. Try the local trout, or a plate of braaied boerewors and pap, the standard fare of the region, and set off early, before the clouds gather over the escarpment.