Hiking Trails

Loerie Hiking Trail Sabie Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga offers some of the finest hiking routes in South-Africa and the opportunity should not be missed to enjoy the wonderful wilderness experience that these offer. Permits are required to use these trails.

Forest Falls Nature Walk

This trail starts and ends at the Green Heritage Picnic site and is a 4.5km circular route.  On this day trail, hikers walk through a forest and along a tributary of the Mac Mac River to eventually reach the Forest Falls which has a breadth greater than its height.

Permit required.
Please get permit from our local information office in the Sabie Market Square or at the Forestry Museum.

Loerie Trails

The Loerie, a moderate to difficult,circular hike, can be started at the Castle Rock Caravan park (14km) or die Bridal Veil Falls (7km) in the Sabie area, Mpumalanga.  This walk takes hikers through pine and eucalyptus plantations and patches of indigenous forest and grassland to the magnificent 70 high Bridal Veil Falls as well as, Glynis and Elna Falls.

Conditions

  • Not recommended for children under 16 years.
  • Moderate fitness required and good balance and flexibility for the 1.7km climb between the falls.
  • This route may be hiked from 7am to 5pm only.
    Hiking time approximately 4 Hours to 4 hours 30 Minutes 
  • Permits are obligatory. (See below)
  • No fishing 
  • All fauna and flora must be protected.
  • All signs and notices must be obeyed.
  • No fires are allowed on the route.
  • Take all sweet papers, empty containers, fruit peel and other litter with you.
  • Leave only your footprints.

Cost:  R30 per person

Permits obtainable from

  • Sabie information office, Sabie Market Square
  • Merry Pebbles Resort - old Lydenburg Road
  • Forestry Museum

You will be given a map and further information once you purchase the relevant permits.
Keep an eye out for the route markers and work with the map to ensure you stay on the correct route.

 

 

Secretary Bird Day Trail

3km. The route starts at the Mac Mac Pools and works its way through the surrounding veldt and scattered indigenous trees.  There is very little shade on this route, so precaution against sunburn is recommended.  A nominal entrance fee is payable at the gate.

Graskop Day Trail

13.3km
This moderately difficult circular trail, which forms part of the Fanie Botha overnight hiking trail, starts and the Graskop Hut.  Continue through a patch of Pine Plantation and cross the railway line.  Follow on, over a concrete bridge across the Mac Mac River, before descending into a indigenous forest and on to the Forest Falls.  the last stretch is a fairly easy incline back to the Graskop Hut.
You will need to purchase a permit for this trail and sign an indemnity register. The permit can be bought from the Graskop Information Bureau in the main street at a cost of R30 per person.

Jock of the Bushveld Day Trail

The Jock of the Bushveld Hiking Trail is situated in Graskop in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

The trail offers several routes which you can follow, routes that Sir Percy Fitzpatrick and his beloved Staffordshire terrier know as Jock, rode and hiked along in the 1880’s. The pair, Percy only a lowly ox-wagon transport-rider back then and not yet knighted, delivered supplies to the Pilgrim’s Rest goldfields. He would tell his children true stories of his and Jock’s adventures at bedtime and his friend, Rudyard Kipling, persuaded him to write a book of the stories resulting in the very popular South African classic, “Jock of the Bushveld”.

The Trail is a circular day walk trail that starts and ends at the Municipal Holiday Resort. The office will provide you with a route map which also shows the hiker where points of interest can be located along the way. The trail will take you to the edge of the Drankensberg escarpment providing stunning views of Pinnacle Gorge. Here Fitzpatrick and Jock made their summer camp near the Tumbling Waters Stream, a perfect spot to sit awhile and soak up the superb scenery.

There is a choice of doing a 3 hour or 5 hour trail and both will pass through “Fairyland”, where you will see giant sandstone rock formations. Fitzpatrick described them as “grey sentinels of fantastic shape” and named them after their shape for example; The Sitting Hen or The Seahorse.

The trail is considered easy to moderate with a fairly steep climb up the escarpment, but if you walking-fit you will easily manage the hike. Don’t forget to take along enough water and be sure to remember your sunscreen.

Remember to get details an map at the Graskop Municipal Holiday Resort.

 

Misty Mountain Hiking Trail

Beautiful  trails through indigenous forests, pine plantations, open grassland and along spectacular waterfalls on the Long Tom Pass. The trails vary in difficulty and in length/duration (from 2.7km to 5.3km) and start and finish at the Misty Mountain lodge (24km from Sabie). The trails are part of a 280 hectare South African Natural Heritage Site, where the endangered blue swallow still breeds. There is no charge for walking the Misty Mountain trails and a pub & restaurant awaits the weary wanderer. Safe & secure parking is available at the start of the trails.

Get information from the Misty Mountain reception.