Take the gap at the Gate

By Brian Berkman: contributing editor, travel

14 Sep 2012

You've heard the cliché about having a bird's eye view and I'm sure you agree how overused it is. Until now - I can honestly describe our view, from SanPark's Golden Gate National Park's Mountain Retreat as bird's eye as the bearded vultures are flying lower than our perch, precipitously wedged into the mountain, at the top of an impossibly steep road.

And, to make my job harder, the best photographs cannot communicate the vastness and the openness that lies beneath in the foothills of the Maluti Mountains. It was as if I couldn't breathe fully before that moment, that, no matter how wide open the spaces have been, gravity still exerts its force. Except up here.

Time slows down

The short day we had up there felt like a week at the costliest of health spas. Friends seeing Facebook photos taken immediately thereafter all commented how much younger I looked. Peace and solitude can do that for you.

Enjoy the raptors.

The only park proclaimed to protect the grasslands, The Golden Gate National Park, en route to Clarens in the Free State Province, gets its name from the golden hue that the rocks adopt as the sun sets. Perhaps it is the silica in the sandstone that lights up so, but whatever the reason it is spectacular to see. You can stay at a hotel in the park that looks directly onto these weird monoliths or, as we did, in one of the self-catering Mountain Retreat log cabins up Oribi Close on top of the mountain.

Home and hearth

Designed to accommodate four in two bedrooms, both en suite, the timber structures come fully fitted with kitchen goodies a foodie would be pleased by (they even have a coffee plunger) but for me the highlight was having a Weber for outdoor use and a huge hearth with a chimney that works so well there was no smell of smoke indoors. In winter it can fall to -15ºC and snow is a regular occurrence but it was mild when we stayed reaching three degrees pre-dawn and warming up to 15ºC as we left. They're geared for the cold - all beds have electric blankets and there is under-carpet heating in the sitting room.

As we wound our way down the mountain we encountered a massive herd, I guess between 50 and 100 blesbok on the mountainside. They turned their white faces to us as we rode away, not unlike that scene in Eyes Wide Shut, to indicate they were happy to have had us, or, glad for the back of us. In my new-found openness and love for the universe I will believe the former - and nothing, for now, will change my mind. Rates are from R1025 per night for two adults.

For more information go to www.sanparks.co.za