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A WORD OF WARNING:
My partner and I completed the Mac Mac 3-Night Trail over the Easter weekend and, unfortunately, we were extremely disappointed by the shocking lack of maintenance throughout the trail.
To highlight a few critical concerns: The Mac Mac hut’s longdrop was infested with spiders, making it completely unusable. The team responsible has apologized and will resolve this. The Graskop hut was locked when we arrived, leaving us stranded without immediate access to shelter. Chantelle luckily came to our rescue with her team bringing us the keys. The map provided was entirely unhelpful—it lacked detail and accuracy, making it nearly impossible to rely on for navigating the trail. More worryingly, we felt that our safety was at serious risk on multiple occasions, especially during the more technical sections of Day 3 and the part before the Bonnet on Day 2. The trail was severely overgrown, with grass as tall as we were obscuring the path and posing a threat of encountering snakes. Numerous fallen trees blocked the trail, forcing us to make unsafe detours through thick forest. In one section, the trail turned into a swamp, making it dangerously slippery and unstable. Thorny vines dangled along the trail, constantly snagging on us, and at times the trail became completely untraceable—forcing us to rely solely on intuition to navigate. It is evident that routine maintenance and safety checks have not been conducted in quite some time. This neglect not only diminished our experience but posed real danger. It is unacceptable that no prior warning about these hazardous conditions was issued, leaving us unprepared for what we faced.
Ultimately, we had to cut our hike short and follow a nearby road back to safety. This was both disappointing and distressing, particularly considering the cost of the trail and our expectations for a safe, enjoyable experience in nature.
This trail holds historical value and should be something Safcol takes pride in. Unfortunately, our experience was harrowing, not memorable—in the worst way.
While we understand that hiking involves rugged terrain, there is a clear distinction between wilderness...
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Day 1.
The trail to Mac Mac hut is poorly marked. A bit of marking improvement is highly needed.
We were got lost, but there was a second group after us that arrived to Mac Mac hut at 22:30, and they had to go back fetch 6 of their group members, only ro get back to the hut 01:30.
The Mac Mac hut was the better cleaned of the 3 ( Mac Mac, Graskop and President Kruger).
Day 2.
The route to Graskop hut wasn't that badly marked. Now, this hut here requires the most maintenance. Even though it has running water, it was very dirty and the Window in the 2 bedroom room can do with replacement. It was very windy and sleeping next to a broken window wasn't ideal.
Day 3.
After 3 kilometres, the trail gets confusing. The board that says 23 Kms to Mac Mac pools will get you lost. Glad the owners sent us a bakkie to rescue us and take us back on track.
President Kruger was the dirtiest of the 3 huts. We had to clean the spider webs ourselves. The hut has electricity, but you have to remind the owners that you are staying over for the night so electricity can be switched on.
There's a broken window in one of the rooms and all the smoke from the fire place ends up in that room.
The trail.
The trail itself is very easy. Not challenging at all. The Mac Mac pools make it all worth it. Only disappointment was having to watch the Mac mac falls from a...
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5 Days Fanie Bother hike in Sabie, Mpumalanga Province 2021. I recently hike these magnificent trail starting from Ceylon hut ending at Graskop hut. We had an incredible time with the weather bein excellent. I thought that this was a brilliant hike that could suit beginners with adequate fitness levels if they have a guide to assist them about how to handle the strenuous sections of the trail. I liked the huts very much because of the fire places for later in the evening. I however noticed that some fo the mattresses and the doors needed some refurbishment. Some are torn and they are old fashioned, meaning they were as hard as rock. I am sure that there are latest versions of the same mattresses which are much softer yet durable? On the trail! the route from Ceylon hut to Maritzbos was straight forward with less intensity. But the hike from Maritzbos to Stables hut is tough. The river crossings were manageable even though a lot of the wooden bridges are now old and needs to be replaced. I feel that Fanie Botha has a huge potential to be a popular hike. But the huts needs to be looked after and maintained properly. Graksop hut was a disappointment. Some of the shower rooms had no doors, forcing us to use only two instead. We had a great hike and I certainly will organizes another group next...
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