Blyde Canyon, A Forever Resort

There are a decent restaurant and a swimming pool inside the resort, where you can do some hiking activities and go to the viewpoints for free. However, the facilities are a bit dated and needs some refurbishment and the mini market inside the resort closes at 6pm, which is sort of inconvenient for those arriving late.

I really enjoyed my saty at the resort my patner also had a great time, it might no be a bad idea to recommend or take some friends to visit the resort again.

We recently made a day visit to the Forever Resort - Blyde Canyon which is around 5km north of the famous Three Rondavels viewpoint to enjoy the hiking trails situated within their property. To make use of these grounds, simply pull up to the reception office just before the entry gate. At the office, you can sign in for Day Visitor access (R150 per person as of July 2024). The staff at the desk will provide you a map which includes a handful of trails and show you where you can park and how to access the trails. On the day, we combined the Leopard Trail and Guinea Fowl Trails which made for several hours of very nice hiking (9.5 km) and total upward ascension of around 150 metres. The vast majority of the trails are natural and in pretty good condition but plenty of up and down climbing so best to have good shoes on the day. Expect a fair bit of exposure so have sufficient sunscreen, a good hat, towel and plenty of water, especially on hot days. During the hike, we started with the Leopard Trail which affords several excellent viewpoints into the Blyde River Canyon and of the Three Rondavels. With good sky conditions, these are 'WOW' stops along the trail. We spotted quite a few hyrax and different bird species. Heard an antelope barking but were not close enough to spot it. Once you descend into a spring area of the Guinea Fowl Trail, you encounter two really nice natural pools. Seems you can swim in these but the water was too cold during our winter hike so we just pressed on. The terrain between the Leopard and Guinea Fowl trails is quite different, giving a unique feel to both trails. Combined these trails took us around 3.5 hours to complete including a fair number of stops along the way for picture taking and rest/water breaks. Would gladly return to repeat this hike next time we are staying in the region and looking for good hiking opportunities.

A beautiful stay it was. Having a short drive to reach a viewpoint for the 3 rondavals was one of my highlights. The staff are friendly and helpful, they made the stay nice. The only challenge is opening windows as there are monkeys in the area. We kept ours closed throughout the stay. Not sure what attracted the monkeys to my car(under the carport). Luckily they didn’t use much force, the only thing I have is “dirty hand prints” .