Mpumalanga

South Africa's interior is a high plateau, and along a line running through this province that plateau comes to an abrupt end, falling roughly a kilometre to the lowveld plain. Everything the province is known for follows from that. Rivers running east across the highveld reach the edge and become waterfalls, which is why there is such a dense cluster of them here and almost none elsewhere. One of those rivers has cut back into the escarpment over millions of years to produce the canyon. The altitude difference produces two climates within an hour's drive — cool, misty and temperate above, hot and subtropical below. Gold eroded out of the highveld rock and collected in the streams below, which is what brought prospectors in the nineteenth century. And the lowveld at the escarpment's foot is where the national park begins, which is why the province is the park's western doorstep.

The road running along the top of the escarpment strings together the viewpoints, and it is one of the best half-days of driving in South Africa. The centrepiece is the canyon: a vast green gorge, unusual among the world's great canyons in being densely vegetated rather than bare rock, with three enormous rounded buttresses rising from the valley floor that are the most photographed formation in the province. Further along, a viewpoint set right on the lip looks out over the lowveld a kilometre below and is frequently and infuriatingly full of cloud, which is part of its reputation. Between them lies a geological curiosity where two rivers meet: swirling water carrying grit has drilled deep cylindrical shafts and potholes into the rock over millennia, and a series of footbridges lets you walk over and among them. Allow a full day rather than a morning, and go early — the escarpment generates its own cloud as the day warms, and views that are clear at eight are often gone by noon.

The concentration of waterfalls along the escarpment edge is remarkable, and several are roadside stops rather than hikes: rivers dropping in single long plumes, in stepped cascades, and in one case through a narrow cleft into a pool that people swim in. They are close enough together to chain half a dozen into one afternoon, which is exactly what most visitors do.

Tucked into a valley in these hills is a small settlement that grew almost overnight when alluvial gold was found in the streams here in the 1870s, and that was largely abandoned when the diggings gave out and the far greater reef was found to the west. Because it emptied rather than being redeveloped, its tin-roofed corrugated buildings survived, and the whole village is now preserved as a museum town — you can go down a demonstration mine shaft, look at prospectors' equipment and eat in a period hotel. It is a genuinely interesting hour, it is the province's one significant piece of built heritage, and it pairs naturally with the waterfall drive since it sits in the middle of them.

The lowveld side of the province is where most people are actually heading. Several of the national park's gates open from here, and the choice of gate matters more than visitors expect: they are hours apart, they open onto quite different parts of a very large park, and the southern section reached from here has the highest game density and correspondingly the most traffic. The gateway towns strung along the foot of the escarpment provide the airport, the supermarkets, the fuel and the last chance to stock up before self-catering inside the park. The private reserves that share Kruger's unfenced western boundary are also in this province, which is why so many lodge transfers run from the same small regional airport. Choosing between the public park and one of those reserves is the decision that shapes a safari, and it is worked through in the Kruger guide. If you are combining the park with the Panorama Route, do the escarpment first and drop down to the gate afterwards — the drive down is spectacular in that direction and merely long in the other.

Above the escarpment the province turns into something almost nobody associates with South Africa: cold, high, grassy uplands with mist, pine plantations, log fires and stocked rivers and dams, where fly fishing for trout is a serious and long-established pursuit. The little towns up here are full of guesthouses with fireplaces and are a genuine change of register between a city and the bush — visitors often stop for a night without expecting much and remember it. As for timing, the dry winter from about May to September is the province's best season on both sides of the escarpment: clear views along the Panorama Route, good game viewing below, cold mornings up top. Summer brings dramatic afternoon thunderstorms, lush green scenery, fuller waterfalls and far more cloud sitting on the viewpoints — worth knowing if the canyon is a main reason for coming.