I updated it a bit. From what I've been reading, check conditions in Malawi (fuel availability), Mozambique (insurgency issues with Renamo) and Zimbabwe (recent elections and government changes) prior to entry.

If you're doing Lesotho, and have a bike worthy of rough dirt roads (rocks, mud, ledges, and so on in places), I did the route from Quacha's Nek to the Sethlabathebe Park and then across the country to Maseru years ago in a 4WD pickup. You could also run up the east/central side of Lesotho through the mountains north to Sani Pass instead of heading west towards Maseru or Buthe Buthe.
At least one of the passes is more challenging than Sani, but then Sani can be done in a normal car with reasonable clearance from the west.
Don't underestimate the time or conditions though, we ended up wild camping on the roadside for one night.

Beautiful part of the world, I spent quite a bit of time hiking, backpacking, fishing (trout) and pony trekking as well as riding and driving through that area from the Amatolas (Katberg, Hogsback and the rest) to the southern Drakensberg (Rhodes and other places), Lesotho and the Drakensberg north east of Lesotho (Underberg and north all the way to Tugela Falls and Royal Natal National Park) .
At least back then, you could backpack from the SA Drakensberg over to Sethlabathebe (Lesotho) in the south and to Sani / Thabana Ntelyana (highest mountain in Southern Africa / Lesotho).


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