Could somebody suggest somewhere nice to stay in transit overnight from Sabie Sands area to northern Drakensberg. How long do you think the drive is? Just a good guesthouse with reasonable food will be fine
or good local restaurant Also, best route?
Thanks

Where in the northern Drakensburg?

We drove from Graskop (maybe an hour from the Sabie Sands gate) to Cathedral Peak in around 7 hours in September, so that would make it around 8 from the gate.

We had the same issue (Sabi Sands to Cathedral Peak) and found there's a choice to make- you have to decide if you want to overnight in the battlefields region towards the west, or go straight down through Swaziland into northern Kwazulu-Natal, where there are more game parks (with a very different, more mountainous terrain than Sabi Sands). For the battlefields, a travel agent recommended Overwin Country Lodge(Lebombo). We decided to go with their other recommendation, Ithala Reserve, which is run by the governmnent's KZN Wildlife organization. We like what we've read about the place including on this forum, and the setting looks really magical.

Even if you stop in the middle, it's a long drive-I'm guessing 5 to 6 hours at a non-frantic pace- and you don't want to be out on the road at night. For Swaziland check with your rental car company- Avis requires you to get a letter from them when you pick up the car that you can show Swaziland authorities to prove you are authorized to take the car out of South Africa.

We leave tomorrow for the trip, so I can't say yet if we made the right choice!

We drove from Champagne Sports Resort to Ngala in a day at the beginning of December. We left about 8:30 AM and stopped a couple of times along the way arriving about 7 PM at the lodge. Your trip would be considerably shorter so 8 hours sounds reasonable.