The spectacularly scenic South African drive most people miss

It’s a good problem to have. When you’re one of the world’s premier wildlife destinations, home to a national park so well-known that most people refer to it simply as “Kruger”, it’s understandable that you might not boast about your country’s natural attractions. Aside from Cape Town’s Table Mountain, most people would struggle to name another notable South African natural landmark.

All of which makes the Panorama Route an unexpected delight. Located west of Kruger in the Mpumalanga province, it’s both a spectacularly scenic driving route and the gateway to a series of dramatic geological wonders.

Like many visitors, we experience it during a transfer between two safari lodges. We could have taken a quicker, more direct option, but our tour operator, Australian-owned specialist This is Africa, knows from experience that the Panorama Route provides a welcome scenic interlude between days spent bouncing around in safari Jeeps.

After snaking up the flanks of the Drakensberg escarpment to reach the high-elevation Central Plateau, we turn onto the R532, the most popular section of a network of roads that comprise the Panorama Route.

Our first stop is arguably the route’s highlight, Blyde River Canyon, a plunging 26-kilometre gorge carved by the Blyde River that’s unusual in that it’s almost completely smothered in subtropical vegetation, hence its claim to be the world’s largest “green” canyon.

One particularly striking feature is the Three Rondavels – three cylindrical quartzite hills with conical tops that resemble a trio of traditional rondavel thatched huts.

Next is Bourke’s Luck Potholes, a bizarre topographical feature at the start of the canyon where the Blyde and Treur rivers meet. Over countless millennia, sand and pebbles carried by the swirling currents have ground out distinctive circular potholes in the sandstone bedrock. Accessed via a network of pedestrian walkways and ravine-hopping bridges, the phenomenon looks like a giant has attacked the canyon with an enormous ice-cream scoop.

The site is named after prospector Tom Bourke, who came to the area in the 1880s looking for gold. Despite there being plenty of it around (the area erupted in gold rush fever a few years later), by all accounts he never found any. Presumably, the site’s name is an ironic reference to his lack of good fortune.