After a relatively challenging first day of their Mountain Kingdom Tour, TRYGVE ROBERTS and the Mountain Passes South Africa group pushes forward from Butha Buthe to Thaba Tseka via the impressive Katse Dam.
The first day had been a long one, covering three passes, including the Sani Pass, Black Mountain Pass (also known as KotisepholaPass) and the rather challenging MotengPass with its 91 corners… but we made it, hearts and minds filled with memories of Lesotho’s beautiful expansive vistas.
The following day was to be another time-pressure day, with the highlight being a tour of the Katse Dam at 11:00. This meant that we had to coverthe 144km trip in under three hours, so we called for an early breakfast and departure time of 07:30.
We took the A1 out of Butha Buthe and headed for Hlotse, where we were faced with some rush hour traffic. Be sharp, as the residents here seemingly have a different set of traffic rules than what we’re used to! An interesting experience, indeed.
Mafika Lisiu Pass
We turned left onto the A25 and headed to the gateway to the Katse Dam, the magical Mafika Lisiu Pass. We had been driving for two hours and had reached Mahobong when one of our guests, Ron Hendra, called in over the radio, advising us that he had left his wallet and passport at the QhanollaGuest House, where we had slept the previous night. Philip called the guest house, who did a quick check on his room and found the wallet and passport all intact. Whilst that was good news, it meant Ron and Judy had to leave the convoy and drive all the way back to Butha Buthe. We arranged to meet them at the Katse Dam.
We drove on, through Pitseng, and soon reached the boom control point at the Mafika Lisiu Pass. This pass is something incredible to experience. At 26km long and climbing 1 104m to the summit at 3 096m, it is huge! It was built specifically to handle 30-ton construction vehicles carting fly ash and cement to the Katse Dam and won an international engineering award of excellence at the time.
Both you and your vehicle will start running out of breath up this majestically scenic pass. It has hundreds of bends and corners and some incredibly sharp and steep hairpin bends, requiring drivers to gear down to first. Right at the summit, there is a spacious and safe view site where you can look back down the distant valley towards Pitseng. It is almost always windy, so have a jacket handy when stopping there.
Katse Dam
The descent is not as dramatic as the ascent, but it is still beautiful as it winds its way down to Ha Lejone, where we had our first glimpse of the green-coloured waters of the Katse Dam. We had another 65km to go before reaching the dam wall.
Following the magnificent Mafika Lisiu Pass, we did not expect much for the final stretch to the dam, but we were in for a surprise! The weather was near perfect with no wind – allowing us to capture some great drone images and truly appreciate the beauty and engineering excellence of this landmark.
Laitsoka Pass
Soon after crossing the headwaters of the Katse Dam via the impressive Mphorosane Bridge (the pylons of this bridge are 80m high!), we tackled the next big pass – the Laitsoka Pass. The A25 route is home to several spectacular passes.
Although the Laitsoka Pass is not the highest, it offers magnificent scenery and includes the crossing of the high-level bridge over the upper reaches of the Katse Dam. The pass is long at 14.7km and contains 75 bends, corners and curves, of which 16 exceed 90 degrees. However, there are no hairpins.
The average gradient of 1:25 is moderated by a central summit point of 2 649m above sea level, but the gradients do reach 1:5 on several sections of the pass – so, it’s steep by any standards. The pass is tarred and forms one of the main routes through the central part of Lesotho and has become busier since the completion of the Katse Dam and the ongoing Lesotho Highlands Water Project.
Nkaobee Pass
This is another big, tarred pass covering 16.2km. It is one of several big passes along the A25 and connects Seshute in the north with the Katse Dam complex in the south. There are 95 bends, corners and curves to contend with, of which 23 have angles greater than 90 degrees (again, there are no hairpins).
The altitude variance of 624m means lots of ascending and descending and although the road is tarred, caution needs to be exercised in terms of traffic volumes and the very real possibility of finding livestock on the road. All of Lesotho’s passes are subject to winter snowfalls to varying degrees.
The pass offers excellent elevated views of sections of the Katse Dam and gives access to two airports – the Katse Airport at the southern end and Seshutes Airport at the northern end.
Katse Dam to Thaba Tseka
There were two roads during our circumnavigation of Lesotho that stood out in terms of needing attention. Those are the 65km long gravel road from Katse Dam to Thaba Tseka and the 7km access road to the Maletsunyane Falls. Significantly, those are also the two biggest tourist attractions in Lesotho and through our co-opted guide, Philip Rawlins, we will do what we can to bring this to the attention of the government and Lesotho Tourism.
The A25 between Katse Dam and Thaba Tseka is also the only and most direct route. Magnificent scenery abounds, but the very poor road surface – which probably hasn’t seen a road grader in two decades – requires all eyes on the road. Based on all the other new roads that have been rapidly built in Lesotho; this one is undoubtedly on the list to be upgraded. It would be a powerful injection for the tourism sector.
We arrived in Thaba Tseka a tad later than planned and we had to drive along another terrible road at under 20km/h to reach our overnight destination, The Clan Lodge. Again, the hospitality and service at our lodgings were excellent, and porters were on hand to cart luggage to our chalets. The grounds were neat and tidy, and we enjoyed a good night’s rest in preparation for our third day on tour – from Thaba Tseka to Thaba Bosiu.
More about Katse Dam
One of the major highlights of this Mountain Kingdom Tour, the Katse Dam, is Africa’s second-largest double-curvature arch dam (the Tekeze Dam in Ethiopia is the largest). It is located on the Malibamatso River and was completed in 1997.
This impressive dam forms part of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which will eventually include five large dams in remote rural areas. The potential of the project was identified by the South African civil engineer, Ninham Shand, as a possible means to supplement the water supply of South Africa’s industrial heartland in the Witwatersrand.
Some interesting facts:
- The wall is 185m high and 60m wide at the base. At the top, it is 9m wide and curves from side to side as well as from top to bottom, making it one of only 30 double curved concrete arch dam walls in the world.
- It took six years and 2.32 million cubic metres of concrete to build – in fact, a truckload of cement and fly ash, transported by road from Ficksburg (around 140km away), was delivered every 40 minutes during the construction phase.
- It is the highest dam in Africa and also one of the world’s ten largest concrete arch dams in terms of volume, with a capacity of nearly 2 billion cubic metres and a surface area of 38.5km².
- There’s a series of parallel galleries inside the dam wall that use precision laser instruments to check on the wall’s movement and the dam’s behaviour. The galleries also act as drainage tunnels for water seepage from the mountain. If you go on a tour, you’ll discover that it is cold and damp inside the wall, with white stalactites in the sections that tunnel into the mountain.
- The Katse Dam is the transfer reservoir for the entire Lesotho Highlands Water Project. All the water captured by the different structures (like Mohale Dam, which is connected to Katse by a 32km-long tunnel) flows from it to South Africa via Clarens in the Free State.
- The Katse Dam provides 72 megawatts of electricity for Lesotho and the country earns around R25 million in monthly export revenue for supplying South Africa with water.
- As a result of the project, Lesotho got 100km of new tar road and 260km of new gravel road, while around 1 000km of existing gravel road was upgraded.
*Dam tours start from the visitor centre and take about an hour to complete, starting at 9:00 and 14:00 during the week, and 9:00, 11:00 and 14:00 on weekends and public holidays. Other activities in the area include fishing, pony trekking, boat cruises, 4×4 trails, hiking, mountain biking, Katse village walking tours and visits to the Bokong Nature Reserve or Ts’ehlanyane National Park.
For more information: www.lesotho-info.co.za/katse-dam | +266 229 10805/6/7/8/9
