MPUMALANGA
Panorama Route
The Blyde River Canyon, the third-largest canyon on earth and the greenest. Almost always driven in the same trip as Kruger, and almost always the surprise of it.
Best time to visitApril to October
The Panorama Route follows the edge of the Drakensberg escarpment where it drops away into the lowveld. The Blyde River Canyon is the centrepiece — twenty-six kilometres of red sandstone, and unlike Grand Canyon or Fish River, it is covered in subtropical vegetation.
The stops are close together and genuinely worth the time: God's Window, Bourke's Luck Potholes, the Three Rondavels, Lisbon and Berlin Falls, and the old gold-rush village of Pilgrim's Rest.
It sits directly between Johannesburg and Kruger's northern gates, so the sensible itinerary drives the escarpment on the way in and enters the park at Orpen or Phalaborwa. Morning mist in the canyon is common and clears by mid-morning.