The past weekend I went to Swinburne, a small town about 15km past Harrismith towards Durban. As far as I can tell, it’s more like a large service station & bus stop with a handful of houses nearby than a real town.
We stayed at Appin House about 5 km out of “town” which has small but perfectly functional 2 bed rooms and an attached bathroom. The property also has a large farmhouse with several rooms and shared bathrooms as well as a barn with bunk beds. This is also the starting point for the Bald Ibis Hiking Trail. Camping is possible, but I’d much rather stay in the Appin House rooms with comfy beds and own ablutions – the cost is minimal.
The place is very popular amongst rock climbers. With building sized boulders all around, two large ones within 100m of the rooms and at least one fully bolted sport route on Rensburgkop topping out at 175m, it’s hardly surprising. It’s also famous for the yearly Rory Lowther memorial challenge, a hit among school climbing teams.
I’ll definitely be back. Not having climbed regularly in a couple of months, I managed to burn myself out quite quickly and had to sit out on a couple of must-do routes, and many more to explore. As a first time boulderer I had fun exploring - there are many problems in all difficulty grades, I’ll just say my bouldering pad provides a nice comfy landing 
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Note to self: bring own cutlery or at least dish washing stuff – the arrangements around this is a bit rickety.
