The Drakensberg

The Sentinal in the Northern Drakensberg Mountains
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I took off from Wyn and David's in my new Volkswagen Chico for the Drakensberg Mountains (known by the locals as "The Berg").  Although I am getting used to driving a stick with the wrong hand and sitting on the wrong side of the car, my internal compass is certainly out of whack (or it could be the confusing roads which seem to run around the city and never in a straight line, let alone north south, east west) and I got lost just getting out of David and Wyn's development.  Little did I know that this was to be the first of many times, thank god Wyn arranged for me to have one of their cell phones...it became my life saver.

The Beauty of the Drakensberg Mountains
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The Drakensberg mountains separate the coast of South Africa from the country of Lesotho which sits in the middle of and is entirely surrounded by South Africa.  Lesotho's only economic resource is water and the electric power from the Katse Dam which it sells to South Africa.

Our route down was far more scary than the route up.

I stayed in the Northern Berg area around the Ampitheatre which is an 8 km cliff top supporting the highest waterfall in Africa called Tugela Falls.  My drive to the Berg was relatively uneventful, with the exception of a major lightening storm which blew up a hydro pole as I drove by it...I kept driving...a little faster actually!

From our hike we could see for miles and miles, despite the rain
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My hostel was called Amphitheatre Backpackers and although the accomodations were basic it had a great little pub and restaurant and arranged many tours and treks throughout the Berg.  The first night in my room I discovered I had a room mate...a giant...ok maybe not giant, but atleast 2 1/2" in diameter spider....I tried to kill him, yeah yeah spare me the save the creatures speech, if he wanted to be spared he would not have choosen my room to set up house...but he jumped at me, he actually jumped off the wall, where I was attempting to make him part of the decorations by way of a good squashing with my latest novel.  He landed thankfully for the moment on the floor and scurried under the bed, at this point I lost him and feared that he was ACTUALLY under the bed...in anycase I took the he is more afraid of me than me of him approach, but just incase I moved my bed into the middle of the room away from the walls and kept my head torch handy just incase I felt him come back in the night.

Another Coca Cola Commercial...my tradition at 2500 m
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I arranged to do a trek to the Amphitheatre which involved an 8 hour hike up the pass of The Sentinel.  The rain of the previous day still plagued us, but our guide a local boy determined that it was safe to proceed, so off we go.  Our group was comprised of 2 british, 2 italians and myself.  The path was relatively easy, we switchbacked up the mountain until we stopped at this one point to have a rest.  The path continued along the side of the mountian, but our guide said, oh no, we come back that way, we are going this way...this way was up, way up what apprently was an area of a previous (hopefully long previous) rockslide.  Up?!?!?! Ok, up it is!  Scrambling over the boulders and rocks we tried not to take each other out by sending a shower of rocks down behind us.  We were happy to reach the summit of the pass in record time...well record time for me, they guide said it would take 1/2 and hour to ascend the 500 m rise, but it took only 20 minutes, a record for me.  The height of the peak was 3100 m, in total we climbed up just under 2000 m.  Once at the top we made our way to the cliff top of the Amphitheathre and the source of Tugela Falls.  Unfortunately, the weather prevented any long stay at the top and after a few pics and some food we headed down.  Our route down was far more scary than the route up. We had 2 sections of chain ladders to climb down.  One was 10 m and the other 20 m in length.  The first was not so bad in a heart stopping kind of way, as once you were on it, it was really straight down, but the second took a route hanging over the cliff (see pic - yeah we went down there...YIKES!) that made my heart skip a beat and not in a good way!  Basically you started off parallel to the rock, kind of lying on top of it and after about 4 rungs, you were swinging on the ladder which was hanging over a cliff, so you were once again parallel to the cliff, but with your butt pointing to the ground.  So picture the letter U on it's side...you start at the top of the "U" ad you make it around the curve, that is the Yikes part and then you are coming around to the end of the "U" and you turn into an "I" thank God!  The remainder of the descent was pretty tame, but the scenery was breathtaking, in a good way!

The Amphitheatre
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When I arrived back, exhausted, and wet, guess who was there to greet me?!? My not so little spider friend, once again on the wall.  Taking no chances this time I struck swiftly and soundly and squashed him in his tracks....ahh a peaceful nights sleep is ahead of me...now I can relax!

The next day I decided to drive to the Central Berg about 200 kms from my hostel to access a route called the Midlands Meander.  This route was created by a group of crafters for the purpose of jointly advertising their wares to attract tourists to their stores.  The first store I visited was a weaver and I bought a blanket and a few scarves made of Mohair...really soft and super warm!

Ok I made it, now can we get the Heck outta here! I know you cannot see it, but it is cold and windy!
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The remainder of shops I went to were not a crafty as I would have hoped (more like imported from China to be sold in South Africa!) but the scenery was stunning, reminding me of the rolling green hills of the UK, with the weather to match...the rain and drizzle followed me in my travels until I reached Joburg the next day.