Thabaphaswa Mountain Sanctuary

Half an hour's drive away, and principally given over to protecting rare breeds of antelopes and buffalo, the Percy Fyfe Nature Reserve is bisected by numerous walking and biking trails; tours on foot and on two wheels make a particularly good way to see the hoofed inhabitants of the reserve at close quarters. An hour away, the Polokwane Game Reserve is another space that’s supremely doable without motor vehicles, and its size means you can cover a lot of terrain in a single day, while looking out for giraffes, white rhino and rare local bird species like the short-clawed lark and Kalahari scrub robin. Also an hour away, the Doorndrai Dam makes a welcoming location for cooling swims and fishing trips, while the wooded trails have secluded nooks for spotting zebras, warthogs and leopards. To learn more about the human occupants of the region, take a tour of the Bakone Malapa Museum (an hour), a typical BaSotho cultural village where visitors can see maize milled, beer brewed and ceremonies performed, and purchase tribal handicrafts to take home. If you're heading onwards as part of a bigger African odyssey, it's around three and a half hours to Johannesburg and four hours to the Kruger National Park's Phalaborwa gate.