Pilgrim's Rest
Introduction

Pilgrim’s Rest is a small town on the western side of the Escarpment of the Drakensberg mountain range in Mpumalanga. The area is a favourite tourist destination because of the abundance of natural attractions to visit and the striking scenery. The Panorama Route runs through Pilgrim’s Rest, and links the most stunning of these sights together into one unforgettable experience. The Panorama Route is made up of the Blyde River Canyon, the many local waterfalls, God’s Window and Bourke’s Luck Potholes.

Blyde River Canyon is the third highest in the world and is nearly 30km long, from the top of which you can view the spectacular Three Rondavels. God’s Window is a particularly noteworthy view point along the Escarpment, situated at the southern end of the Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve. Here there is a 700m cliff drop into the Lowveld and surrounding game reserves, offering phenomenal views. On a clear day a lucky visitor will be able to see over the entire Kruger National Park to the Lebombo mountains that constitute the border between South Africa and Mozambique.

Waterfalls of note include the Mac Mac Falls, Lisbon Falls and the Berlin Falls. Each waterfall is beautiful in its own right, and is accompanied by African curio markets where you can pick up many types of souvenir. Please note that bartering is a part of curio shopping in South Africa, so don’t feel obliged to take the first price offered to you when buying curios.

Bourke’s Luck Potholes is a curious natural landscape feature consisting of circular potholes formed by the Treur River cascading down into the bedrock of the Blyde River over incredibly long periods of time. The Potholes mark the beginning of the Blyde River Canyon and are named after pioneer Tom Burke, who staked a claim in the area. Although he correctly foresaw that considerable amounts of gold would be found in the vicinity, he himself did not manage to produce any gold from the land.

Pilgrim’s Rest itself was declared a goldfield in 1873 during the Transvaal Gold Rush after Alec Patterson found gold deposits in Pilgrim’s Creek, and quickly became a bustling and successful town. By the end of the year Pilgrim’s rest was home to approximately 1,500 prospectors working in the area. Mining closed down in Pilgrim’s rest in 1971, but was re-opened again in 1999 by Transvaal Gold Mining Estates, where it still continues today. The town was acknowledged as a National Monument in 1986 and today serves as a nostalgic glance back into the lives of the pioneers living in the Victorian era in South Africa.