Victorian Gold Rush Village
This Victorian gold rush village is a living museum that is still home to several hundred people living in wooden cottages with corrugated iron roofs. Stay at the charming Royal Hotel, or in an authentic miner's cottage, and visit the Digger's Museum where yesteryear comes to life. You can even try panning for your own piece of gold.
Mount Sheba Nature Reserve, south of Pilgrim’s Rest, is best known for its indigenous forest - one of the few left in the region. Sabie is the centre of the largest man-made forest in South Africa. The Cultural Historical Forestry Museum depicts various aspects of the country's forestry industry. The Bridal Veil, Horseshoe and Lone Creek falls just outside Sabie are worth a visit.
Guided tours of the Sudwala Caves are offered seven days a week. The six-hour Crystal Cave Tour takes place daily. At the adjacent PR Owen Dinosaur Park, full-scale replicas of dinosaurs are on display.
Nostalgic Shopping
Even through Pilgrim’s Rest's postcard-perfect nostalgia, tidbits of its real soul remain among the exquisitely restored corrugated iron buildings, remnants of the gold rush in the late 1800s. Feel your way down to Pilgrim's Creek, splash in the brook and listen for the robin-chat. The village, set among the beautiful hills of Mpumalanga, is part museum, part shopping treat. Make sure you have space on your camera!
Robber's Pass
The Old Transport Road from Ohrigstad to Pilgrim's Rest and the coast always went via Caspersnek. Over the years the road was rerouted and improved, and in 1873 it was extended from the gold diggings at Mac-Mac over the Burgers Pass down the Motlatse (Blyde) Valley to Pilgrim’s Rest, and then linked to Mashishing via Robber's Pass and Krugerspos.
This pass, originally known as Pilgrim's Hill, was renamed in 1899 after a mail coach was held up and robbed of gold bullion worth £10 000. Where the old wagon road, now part of the Prospector's Trail, crosses Robber's Pass, you'll find a Jock waymarker plaque set into a block of quartzite.