Getting to Malealea Lodge with Public Transport

Written by a guest who stayed at Malealea Lodge on 9th August, 2026

1 Stay near the departure point, but not too near!
2 Get early morning Uber from hotel to the Lesotho Taxi Rank at 78 Sophie de Bruyn Street
3 Get shared taxi to Maseru
4 Walk through border controls and across bridge
5 Get 4+1 taxi to Sefika Taxi Rank
6 Get 3pm bus direct to Malealea Lodge

Public Transport from Malealea/SaniPass/Jhb/ Durban (written by a traveller on 19 July, 2016)

Minibus from Malealea to Maseru - Maseru to Butha-Buthe - Then Butha Buthe to Mokhotlong - then Mokhotlong to Sani

There is a minibus from from Malealea Lodge to Maseru. The last bus leaves at 8am. Check the time of departure with reception the day before you want to leave.

Change to another minibus from Maseru to Mokhotlong.

There is indeed a bus at 6AM bus from Mokhotlong. I'm not sure if it was supposed to leave at 6AM, but it left at 6:35AM in part because there were so many people in line. I say a bus because it was a true bus--not a minibus taxi. I would suggest people considering taking it to arrive early to get a seat, since the bus was PACKED, with many people standing the entire journey. It cost 128 rand and arrived at the final bus rink in Mokhotlong at around 4:15PM.
Minibus taxis from Mokhotlong to Sani, I am told, run from 8AM-11AM. However, since I took the minibus on a Sunday, when there are fewer travellers, the 8AM bus didn't fill up until around 9:15AM, so left later. It cost 110 rand. Although Lonely Planet says that the bus runs from Mokhotlong to Underberg, after going through the Sani Pass, about 1 km away from the Sani Lodge, the minibus stopped, and then another minibus from Underberg took us in the Underberg direction. I was told the driver might charge another 35 rand, but that didn't happen. I arrived in Underberg around 1:30PM.
The minibus taxi from Underberg to Pietermaritzburg cost 95 rand and left from the same taxi rink as where the minibus from Sani Pass dropped us off. Easy transfer. I think it took around 1.5-2 hours.
There were lots of minibus taxis from Pietermaritzburg to Johannesburg (6 hours, 250 rand) and to Durban (45 minutes, 55 rand). I wanted to see a bit of Durban, and then took an overnight bus back to Johannesburg on Sunday night, arriving early Monday morning. There was no need for an advanced reservation; every single bus company had seats available for night buses to Johannesburg.