Bourke's Luck Potholes is one of those places where water has done something so tidy that it looks designed. At the meeting of the Treur and Blyde rivers, the current has spent thousands of years swirling pebbles and grit against the sandstone and dolomite, carving cylindrical hollows in the rock that look like giant cooking pots. A footbridge crosses the gorge so you can look down into the swirling pools from above, and the colour of the water, a deep green over pale stone, makes a surprisingly good photograph.
The names tell the story. Treur means mourning in Afrikaans, and Blyde means joyful. A group of Voortrekkers camped by the river in the nineteenth century, and when the men who had gone ahead returned safely, the party renamed the second river in celebration. The potholes themselves are named after a gold prospector, Tom Bourke, who staked a claim here and, so the story goes, never found the fortune he expected. That kind of irony is common in this part of Mpumalanga, where gold rushes came and went in the 1870s.
Getting here is half the fun. The R532 north of Graskop passes God's Window and the road then runs along the top of the escarpment, rolling through grassland and patches of forest before dropping gently to the car park. The surface is generally excellent, the corners are open and flowing, and traffic is light outside of school holidays, though tour buses stop at every viewpoint. The air is cool at this height, and mist is common, particularly in the morning, so a light jacket is worthwhile even in summer.
Nature is part of the pleasure. The canyon walls are home to baboons, klipspringers and a range of birds including the Cape vulture, which nests on the cliffs and can be seen soaring on thermals in the afternoon. The vegetation changes quickly with altitude, from grassland to forest to the aloes that flower orange and red in winter, giving the rocks a splash of colour.
Graskop, about thirty kilometres south, is the sensible place to fill up, and most riders plan their stop here as a walk of an hour or so before moving on to the viewpoints at the Three Rondavels. Watch the rocks near the railings, because the spray from the falls makes them slippery, and keep your helmet and gloves in a safe place when you cross the bridge.