Even more hiking
Trip Start
Oct 13, 2011
1
21
41
Trip End
May 19, 2012
Northern Drakensberg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Saturday, December 3, 2011
We arrived in the Northern Drakensberg for 5 days of Hiking and relaxing before Johannesburg and India. Our accommodation, Amphitheatre Backpackers, was a few buildings spread across a mountain plateau at 1700m and our personal room was housed in the twin towers at the far end of the garden. The Plateau was a green grassy field fifty miles across surrounded on three sides by the Drakensberg mountain range containing the highest peaks in South Africa and the Dragons.
Our first adventure was to hitch hike to the local town Bergville with our lake Bled Slovenian friend, Neza. The third car picked us up once I had taken a step back from the road with my vest and beard and let the girls thumb down a car. Bergville was full of hustle and bustle Zulus. After a trip to the pub to ask for directions we once again donned our famous only white person in the village status and the manager sent the bar maid with us to show us the town. We did enough food shopping so we could hide away on our plateau for 5 days and Sam girl brought loads of chocolate as it was half the price in the rough Zulu supermarket. We caught a bus back to the backpackers which once again had around 10 Zulus crowding around the Europeans to direct us to the correct bus. The bus was of course a 20 year old 15 seater with a crew of 3 Europeans and 17 Zulus. We then retired to the Jacuzzi, sauna, pool routine at the backpackers until bed time.
Sunday was taken very seriously and consisted of a lay in, a yoga session directed by Sam girl, a jog and workout, roast dinner a lazy afternoon and an evening using the free Jacuzzi, sauna and moon lit pool.
On Monday we awoke early after Sunday recuperation and went to the mountains with our self made hiking adventure team of Sam girl, Neza, Sam boy and fresh from representing the French government in the Cop 17 environmental negotiations Bulgarian Dimitar. We tackled the 6 hour Gorge walk which consisted of a narrowing gorge with a crystal clear river running through it.
The highlights where swimming in a fresh mountain water pool with such clean fresh water you felt more healthy just to touch it, baboons, the perfect African weather, waterfalls and a stream in a cave. Once we returned to base camp we saw a storm develop of the mountains across our plateau and gradually watched as the rain and lighting strikes got closer and closer. Then the storm hit with avengance with powerful rain and lighting hitting the ground all around. This knocked off the electric, destroyed the tents in the camp-site but was exciting to watch from our bamboo conservatory.
Day three in mountain Paradise we went on a guided trek to the 2nd highest waterfall in the world, Tugela Falls, with fifteen other travellers. We hiked up the back of the amphitheatre and had to scramble and rock climb up a gorge the views were like the Lake District. We then reached the summit after three hours of climbing as the African sun struck you rather than shoon. The effort blood, blisters and sweat was all worth it for the view though. It was the best view I have ever seen the land just fell away from 3126m there was the natural amphitheatre. The best way I can describe the view was like watching the most amazing Planet earth in HD but you are behind the camera. We then hiked along the ridge to Tugela Falls which is a spectacular sight as the water falls 1000m straight down, that is when there is water which is only in the winter snow season. There was a small trickle and a "swimming pool" a few metres from the edge which as we jumped in created a small water fall. Then came the experience which was the talk of everyone on the way down. I decided to walk to the edge to look over the shear drop 5m from the edge I slipped and came to rest a mere 4m from the edge. This was greeted by gasps from the rest of the party because from there viewing angle it looked as if I was only 1m from the 1000m drop. We then began the climb down which had one very
interesting part some chain ladders suspended over a 15m cliff and then a ledge and then another chain ladder over a 30m cliff. These ladders where made to look worse due to the 2000m drop back down to sea level. Sam girl took on the ladders first to impress the group
and I went up and down the ladders twice just for fun. Some people got really scared and there where some very shaky descents. We had a strong bond as a group though for the last two hours back to the bus.
Weather – Average 25oc, sunny/cloudy/ stormy.
