10:00 Depart Durban Station and travel in a northwesterly direction towards Pietermaritzburg, the provincial capital and major producer of aluminium and timber and dairy products. Guests may freshen up in their suites before joining fellow travellers in the lounge car or observation car at the rear of the train.
13:00 Lunch is served in the dining cars. The train traverses the spectacular Valley of a Thousand Hills.
15:00 Visit the famous Ardmore Ceramics Gallery. Here, artists are encouraged to express their imagination based on nature and Zulu folklore and tradition.
19:30 Dinner is served in the dining cars. The train climbs the escarpment to Ladysmith and passes Chieveley Siding where, on the right of the track, stands a memorial to Winston Churchill who was captured here in November 1899 while trying to free an armoured train trapped by a Boer ambush. Overnight on board. Dress: Formal
Lions River Railway Station
06:45 Breakfast is served in the dining cars until departure.
08:00 Transfer (50 minutes) to Spionkop Lodge. A choice of two excursions is available: 1. An escorted tour of the historic battlefields OR 2. A game drive in the 11 000-acre Spionkop Reserve.
12:00 Return to the train.
13:00 Lunch is served in the dining cars. The train travels to Elandslaagte.
15:00 Enjoy a game drive in the Nambiti Reserve, a private Big Five bush retreat set on 20 000 acres of malaria-free bushveld with incredible biodiversity including savannah, grasslands, thornveld and tall acacia trees.
19:30 Dinner is served in the dining cars. Travel towards Volksrust across the Drakensberg Mountains, first named by the Voortrekkers who thought the unbroken chain of heavily weathered peaks reminded them of the spines on a dragon’s back, hence the name ‘Dragon Mountain’ or Drakensberg in Afrikaans. The train passes Glencoe – site of the first battle of the Anglo Boer War and now the centre of the province’s coalfields – and Newcastle, where the Indian population has erected what is reputed to be the largest domed Hindu temple in the Southern Hemisphere. From here the train descends from Majuba Hill, site of the decisive battle that ended the First Anglo Boer War. Dress: Formal
07:00 Breakfast is served in the dining cars until 10:00. The train travels northwest across the Highveld towards Balfour, a small mining town in Mpumalanga, and Heidelberg, site of the first Rand gold strike.
13:00 Lunch is served in the dining cars. The train traverses the gold-rich mining areas of Gauteng. 16:00 Arrive at journey’s end at the gracious Rovos Rail Station in Pretoria.
Rovos Rail Station
