Are you an adventurist and looking for the perfect weekend itinerary for Clarens, then here is the perfect one! We’ve recently spent three nights (four days) in the beautiful Clarens which is located in the beautiful Eastern Free State. It was a long weekend, so it was quite busy.
We left early the Friday morning and decided to drive to Harrismith and then made our way to Clarens from there. The main reason for this was due to many people advising us not to drive through the countryside as the roads there are not in a good condition. This did add an extra hour to the trip, but we preferred it that way.
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Day 1
We stopped at the Engen Bergview Petrol Station in Harrismith for a quick coffee break before we continued with the 1 hour and 30 minute drive to Clarens.
Our check-in was only at 14:00, so we decided to first stop at the view points at Golden Gate National Park, which is located about 30 minutes from Clarens. There are many stops along the way as you make your way through the Lichen Pass. From here we drove the Blesbok Loop and took in the beautiful mountain range. The yellow frames are also a popular attraction in South Africa and was next on our list. This is located at the Golden Gate Hotel.
We made our way to Clarens and quickly grabbed lunch at The Square in town before we checked in at our AirBnb. Getting to our AirBnb, we decided to relax for the remainder of the day as we had a big day planned for the following day.
We finally grabbed dinner at Mosaic Pizzeria, where there were some great life entertainment.
Day 2
We’ve decided before we even left for Clarens that we wanted to do a day trip to the Drakensberg to hike the Amphitheater trail. This was one of the toughest trails we’ve done thus far, but it was so worth it!
We made our way to the Witsieshoek Mountain Lodge early the Saturday morning to be on time for the 8am shuttle that had taken us to the start of the trail. The drive from Clarens to Witsieshoek was about an hour and a half. From here we started our ascend to the top of the tallest waterfall in the world – the Tugela Falls. This was truly an experience and I would definitely recommend you add this to your trip if you like hiking.
This hike takes about 5+ hours to complete. We did take a bit longer as we had lunch at the top and admired the view.
We were quite tired after that hike, so we made our way back to Clarens and enjoyed some pizza at The Highlander Restaurant. The wood fire pizza was the perfect reward after the 12km hike.
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Day 3
We took it slow on day 3 and slept in a bit. We then made our way to The Platform Restaurant for some waffles for brunch. Afterwards we explored this little town by foot. There are so many great shops that are so unique.
The afternoon we made our way to the Golden Gate National Park to do some of the hiking trails there. We started with the Mushroom trail, made our way to the Eco Ravine and ended with the Brandwag Buttress Trail. This took us about 2 and a half hours.
There are also so many other trails to choose from.
Once we finished with the trails, we walked to the Natural Pools that is located behind the chalets.
Afterwards we bought ice-cream at the Petrol Station where we parked the car and made our way to the Oribi Loop drive. We parked at the Drakensberg view point and enjoyed our post hike ice-cream snack. We watched as the sun set over the mountains and just when we left, it started raining. Talk about perfect timing.
As we drove back to Clarens, I looked for restaurants to grab dinner at. I was surprised at how early the restaurants close on a Sunday, and for a moment it looked like we would go to bed hungry. Luckily, the Post House Restaurant was still open, so we headed there for some burgers and ribs.
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Day 4
This was our last morning at Clarens and check-out was at 10am. After we checked out we made our way to the Highland Coffee Roastery to get the permit for the Clarens Nature Reserve Trails and also some coffee for the trip (they are known to have the best coffee in town).
We did the short walk to Kloof Dam and grabbed lunch at the Clarens Brewery.
The next stop was the ‘Bus Stop‘ Coffee Shop and then we made our way back to Pretoria. We did stop for some photos with the beautiful Cosmos flowers that is in Season from middle March to end of April.
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