Why this ride
The stops in between: Gods Window, Bourkes Luck Potholes, Three Rondavels and Blyde River Canyon. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Panorama Route · 122 km
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 122 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 18
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Road summary
A escarpment route from Graskop, South Africa to Blyde River Canyon, South Africa, via God's Window. Key character: canyon; waterfalls; high viewpoints. Surface: paved.
Scenic road chapters
Panorama Route
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 9 km this is Panorama Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 9 km
- Named road
- Panorama Route
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Graskop
Graskop perches right on the lip of the Drakensberg escarpment in Mpumalanga, where the highveld plateau drops about a thousand metres to the lowveld below, and nearly everything worth seeing in the area is a view. It is a small tourist town with craft stalls, cafes and guesthouses, and its position at the top of the Panorama Route makes it the natural base. Locals call the edge here the Berg, and when the mist comes up from the lowveld in the morning it fills the gaps between the forested spurs like milk.
Read the complete Graskop write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Graskop is where the day begins. Next is Gods Window.
2. Gods Window
God's Window is a viewpoint at the edge of the Drakensberg escarpment in Mpumalanga, and the name tells you what to expect. The cliff falls away almost a kilometre to the Lowveld below, a flat, hazy plain of bush and farmland that stretches east toward Kruger National Park and the Mozambique border. On a clear morning you can see an astonishing distance, and on a misty one the whole plain vanishes under cloud and you are left standing on the roof of a white sea. Weather is capricious here, and even in summer a fog can swallow the view within minutes, so give yourself a margin.
Read the complete Gods Window write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Gods Window comes up 21 km in. Next is Bourkes Luck Potholes.
3. Bourkes Luck Potholes
Where the Treur River meets the Blyde, the water has carved a set of smooth, round potholes into the rock, some of them deep enough to swallow a car, and the effect is a little like looking into the inside of a giant's pocket. The potholes are cylindrical bowls of yellow, orange and grey dolomite, created over thousands of years by whirlpools spinning sand and pebbles against the riverbed. A series of footbridges and paths lets visitors look down into them from above, with the river rushing through the channels below.
Read the complete Bourkes Luck Potholes write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
43 km in you reach Bourkes Luck Potholes. Next is Three Rondavels.
4. Three Rondavels
Three huge, round-topped pillars of rock stand along the rim of the Blyde River Canyon, and local people liken them to the rondavels, the round thatched huts of traditional African homesteads, which is how they got their name. Each is a dome of dark rock, capped with grass and bush, rising hundreds of metres above the water. Local tradition links them to the wives of a chief, and the place is treated with some respect.
Read the complete Three Rondavels write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Three Rondavels, about halfway. Next is Blyde River Canyon.
5. Blyde River Canyon
Few canyons carry such cheerful names. When Voortrekkers found the river in the 1840s, they had left the Delagoa Bay fever lowlands in sorrow, fearing their leader was dead; they called a stream Treur, meaning mourning, and when they met the party returning safely, the next river became Blyde, meaning joy. The Blyde River Canyon, in Mpumalanga, is the result: a gorge about twenty-five kilometres long and up to seven hundred metres deep, cut into the northern end of the Drakensberg escarpment and clothed in green subtropical vegetation, making it one of the largest green canyons on Earth.
Read the complete Blyde River Canyon write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Blyde River Canyon sits at 86 km, late in the day. Next is back to Graskop.
6. back to Graskop
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Graskop write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 122 km.
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