Golden Gate Highlands National Park

Listen for a moment. Wind moves across the grass in long, dry waves, and somewhere above you a bird calls once and goes quiet. The air up here is thin and cool, even on a bright day. Then you look up. Walls of sandstone rise from the slopes, banded in cream, ochre and deep orange. Late in the day, the sun turns them the colour of honey. You are standing in Golden Gate Highlands National Park, in the eastern Free State of South Africa.

The name comes from that colour. The story most often told is that an early settler watched the low sun strike two facing cliffs and saw them glow like a pair of golden gates. Whether it happened exactly that way, nobody can say for certain. But stand here near sunset and you will understand why the name stuck. The cliffs do not simply reflect the light. They seem to hold it, long after the valley floor has gone grey.

This park sits in the foothills of the Maluti Mountains, close to the border with Lesotho. The town of Clarens lies just to the west. Everything here is high country. The valleys themselves sit well above sea level, and the peaks climb higher still. That height shapes daily life in the park. Summer afternoons often bring sudden thunderstorms. Winter nights fall below freezing, and snow sometimes dusts the ridges and the grass.

Now, about that rock. The sandstone belongs to what geologists call the Clarens Formation. It was laid down roughly two hundred million years ago, in the early Jurassic period, when this region was a dry land of wind-blown sand dunes. Over time, those dunes hardened into stone. Water and weather then carved them into the shapes you see today: overhangs, deep caves, rounded domes and sheer faces. Iron minerals in the rock give it those warm stripes of red and yellow.

Here is the first surprise. Those ancient dunes held more than sand. In the 1970s, a clutch of fossil dinosaur eggs was found in this area. Years later, scientists studied them closely and found tiny embryos still curled inside. They belonged to Massospondylus, a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur. These rank among the oldest known dinosaur embryos anywhere on Earth. So the cliffs around you are not just scenery. They are a record of a world long before the first flowers.

The best-known rock in the park is the Brandwag Buttress. Brandwag is an Afrikaans word that means sentinel, or guard. It is a massive block of sandstone that rises above the main rest camp area, and it does look like a watchman standing over the valley. Not far away, you will find the Mushroom Rocks. Here, softer layers at the base have worn away faster than the harder caps above. The result is a row of stone shapes that look almost balanced.

Look away from the cliffs and toward the ground. This park protects montane grassland, which means grassland that grows high in the mountains. It is easy to dismiss grass as empty space. It is not. This is one of the most threatened types of landscape in South Africa, because so much of it has been ploughed or grazed. Here, the grass still covers whole hillsides. In spring and summer it turns green and fills with small wildflowers.

The grassland supports a quiet population of animals. Watch the open slopes for black wildebeest, with their pale tails and stiff, almost comic gallop. You may see eland, the largest antelope in Africa, moving slowly in small groups. Blesbok, with a white blaze down the face, graze in herds. Plains zebra and springbok live here too. Smaller and shyer antelope, such as grey rhebok and oribi, keep to the long grass and are easy to miss.

Now the second surprise. Look up at the cliff faces and the sky above them. This is one of the places where you have a chance of seeing a bearded vulture. It is a huge bird, rare in southern Africa, with a rust-coloured chest and a dark tuft below the beak. Its diet is unusual. It feeds largely on bone. It will carry large bones high into the air and drop them onto rocks to break them open.

Other birds share the cliffs. Cape vultures nest on high ledges in this region. The southern bald ibis, a dark bird with a bare red head, often feeds on the short grass after rain or fire. Birders come here specifically for these species. Even if you are not a birdwatcher, it is worth pausing to scan the ridgelines. A slow, wide shadow crossing the rock is often your first clue that something large is overhead.

People have lived in these mountains for a very long time. The San, the first hunter-gatherers of southern Africa, painted on rock shelters across this wider region. Later, Basotho communities settled the highlands, and their culture remains strong in the area today. Close to the park, a cultural village presents traditional Basotho homes and ways of life. It offers a human layer to a landscape that can otherwise feel almost empty of people.

The park was formally proclaimed in the 1960s, and it has grown since then to include more of the surrounding mountain land. A public road runs right through it, so you can see a great deal from your car. But the park rewards those who walk. Short trails lead to caves and viewpoints, and longer routes climb onto the high ridges. The ground is often uneven and steep, so take your time and watch your footing.

Before you move on, stand still for one more minute. Notice how the light changes on the sandstone as clouds pass over the sun. One moment the cliffs are pale, the next they are glowing orange. Listen to the wind in the grass and the small sounds of birds and insects. Look for movement on the far slopes. As you leave, keep glancing back at the rock. The golden gates may only open for you on the way out.