Hiking the Drakensberg's Spectacular Tugela Gorge

The Drakensberg Mountains fly under the radar in South Africa’s tourism scene. Everyone goes to Cape Town and the Kruger and the Garden Route, but the Drakensberg doesn’t often make it onto that “must-see” tourist itinerary. Even I’m guilty of neglecting the Drakensberg; I’d dipped in once or twice over the years but had never done a proper Drakensberg weekend until last month, when Thorsten and I stayed in Royal Natal National Park’s Thendele Camp and did the Tugela Gorge hike. Now I’m appalled at myself for sleeping on this spectacular part of South Africa for so long.

We only stayed at Thendele for two nights and managed to complete one long hike in between rain storms. But, wow, what a hike it was.

Thendele Camp: What You Need to Know

The Royal Natal National Park, which is actually not a national park but a provincially run park under Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, is about fours hours’ drive from Joburg, making it just about doable for a three-day weekend. You don’t need a 4x4 to get there, but there are some potholed roads to navigate. There is a campsite at Royal Natal, the Mahai Campsite, as well as Thendele, the self-catering chalet camp.

The chalets at Thendele are standard self-catering units – much like most SANParks accommodation – but comfortable and have most things necessary for a weekend stay. Bring a sharp knife and decent frying pan, if you’re particular, and a coffee plunger with coffee. There is a small souvenir shop at Thendele, but they don’t carry many food items so bring everything you need to eat.

Honestly, the inside of the chalet hardly matters when you have views like these. The camp is encircled by the spectacular Drakensberg Ampitheatre and the mountains are bright green at the height of summer.

Thendele is surrounded by hiking trails of varying lengths marked with delightfully old-fashioned trail markers. Don’t miss the “Forest Walk”, a very short (less than a kilometer) but pretty trail through the indigenous forest behind the camp.

We arrived at Thendele late on Friday afternoon and immediately set out on one of the shorter hikes: the ominous-sounding Devil’s Hoek. Unfortunately it started to rain about 20 minutes in – rain is a constant risk during the Drakensberg summer – so we had to turn back. We still enjoyed some amazing views.

So we walked back to camp, enjoyed a hearty dinner, and went to bed early in preparation for our big hike the next day.

The Tugela Gorge Hike

Tugela Gorge is the base of Tugela Falls, which may or may not be the highest waterfall on earth. The falls flow over the Ampitheatre, high above Thendele, and there is another hike, the Tugela Falls hike via Sentinel Peak, that takes you to the top of the falls. The Tugela Falls hike is not reachable from Thendele; although it looks close on a map, the Sentinel Peak trail head is more than two hours’ drive away.

I should also mention that we did not actually see Tugela Falls during our Tugela Gorge hike, for reasons I’ll explain shortly. But don’t let that discourage you from doing this hike – it’s stunning regardless.

We got up at sunrise on Saturday and set out as soon as it was light.

Tugela Gorge is an out-and-back hike, meaning you walk the same route there and back, and is about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) total. It’s fairly flat for most of the way, except for the very beginning (a steep downhill on the way out and a painfully steep uphill on the way back) and middle part when you are in the actual gorge, which involves some climbing and scrambling and squeezing between rocks. Most of the walk is in the sun, but there are several nice shady stretches through the forest. Bring lots of water, sunblock, and snacks to eat in the gorge. You might also want to bring a bathing suit for swimming in the rock pools in the gorge.

I know this is a cliché, but my photos really don’t do justice to what we saw. But here a few of them accompanied by Thorsten’s sketches.

We didn’t have a detailed map, just the simple (i.e., not very readable) map from the Thendele Camp shop, and we hadn’t done any research in advance because that’s how the Blogitects roll. Once we got inside the gorge, we were confused about exactly where to go to actually view Tugela Falls.

We passed the chain ladder on the right side of the gorge, which is one way to get to a viewpoint for the falls. But I took one look at that ladder and knew there was no way in hell I’d be climbing it.

We climbed a smaller, less intimidating ladder on the left side of the gorge, which apparently leads to a safer, easier falls viewpoint. But we never saw any signs and got a bit lost and eventually turned back.

So we missed the falls. I’m not that sad though, as they are apparently very narrow and not really that impressive-looking. And anyway, I’m pretty sure we discovered the most incredible photo-op in the gorge, falls or no falls, at the mouth of the magical stone tunnel.

Apparently you can walk easily into (although not all the way through) the stone tunnel in winter, but in summer the crystal-clear water is deep at the mouth. Fortunately Thorsten was braver than I was and swam into the water, which was very, very cold, to have a look inside and provide me with a perfect photo-op.

The walk back was stunning, as the midday sun had lit up the valley and there were some nice clouds in the sky. I was too tired to take a lot of photos though.

The last kilometer of our hike, up the steep hill to Thendele Camp, was by far the hardest and involved a lot of swearing. But we made it back, exhausted and pleased with ourselves, and had the whole afternoon and evening to nap and stare at the view. We intended to do one of the shorter hikes the next morning but it rained again. I can’t say we were very upset.

I can’t recommend this weekend highly enough. Better yet, stay for a full week.

You don’t have to stay over inside Royal Natal National Park to do the Tugela Gorge hike – you can also enter as a day visitor. Book a chalet in Thendele Camp at thendele.co.za.