By Murray Williams and Leila Samodien
Dawn broke on Wednesday on a country all dressed in white, after widespread snowfalls overnight.
With temperatures plummeting around the country, reports of snow came in on Wednesday morning from the top of Sani Pass on the KwaZulu-Natal border with Lesotho down to the Boland in the Cape.
It provided the icing on the Hottentots Holland range, as well as the Matroosberg.
'I think all the power lines have been pulled down by the snow' Cape Town may have escaped the white stuff, but hundreds of people displaced by this week's stormy weather face further downpours predicted for the weekend.
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For the first time in a quarter of a century, Johannesburg woke up to a snowscape on Wednesday morning, covering most parts of the city.
The last time it snowed in the country's biggest city was on September 10, 1981.
At the Phineas-McIntosh Park in Brixton and Zoo Lake in Parkview, families arrived early for snow fun.
Closer to home, Jurg Wagner, of Kambrokind guest house in bitterly cold Sutherland, reported on Wednesday morning: "It's cold, but not that cold - about -4 degrees Celsius. It got as cold as -5,5 degrees Celsius on Tuesday night but the sun is shining and the pass (from Matjiesfontein) is open."
Up the coast in the Eastern Cape, a number of key roads were closed by snowfalls.
Tshepo Machea of the Eastern Cape transport department said roads closed included the N9 between Graaff-Reinet and Middelburg, the R61 between Cradock and Graaff-Reinet and the N6 between James-town and Queenstown, the Nico Malan Pass on the R67 between Seymour and Fort Beaufort and the R58 between Lady Grey and Elliot.
"It's a fairyland, our own Alps," said Lady Grey resident Johan Hattingh.
Further north, Dennis Jocks, general manager at the Sani Pass hotel in the southern Drakensberg, said on Wednesday morning: "We have 25cm of snow.
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