Roadtrip to the Drakensberg

Okay, back to ‘reporting.’ Over Labor Day weekend, a group of us (Michelle, Erin, Stephanie = PAC doctors and a couple of other friends = Tao and Joe) went on a road trip to the Drakensberg mountain range in South Africa. On Friday night, we drove part of the way to Newcastle, South Africa and stayed in a quaint bed and breakfast called, The Tigerskloof. We requested breakfast at 7:00am so that we could get an early start and complete our trek to the Drakensberg in time for an afternoon hike and much anticipated sunset (the Lonely Planet described it as an ‘explosion of red and orange’).

Tigerskloof

We were quite coordinated and managed to roll-out of ‘the kloof’ just before 8:00am. As we weren’t sure of the availability of gas along our route to the Drakensberg, we opted to stop in Newcastle on our way out of town. Doug, Joe and I were in our car and then Michelle, Erin, Stephanie, and Tao were in Michelle’s Honda-CRV (that will be important, later). As you have probably come to expect, there are always a series of unexpected little twists and turns during our weekend adventures. We have endearingly opted to call these ‘side trips’ like they are bonus points of interest or something. I’ll say upfront, that Michelle was the ‘side trip’ queen for our Drakensberg trip, and her first little jaunt took place at the gas station in Newcastle. Since we were in South Africa, a couple of folks needed Rand (instead of the Emalangeni we use in Swaziland) and opted to frequent the ATM inside of the gas station. Stephanie and Erin successfully extracted money, but Michelle’s ATM card was eaten by the machine. This detour cost us 90 minutes at the gas station until a local representative for the bank that sponsored this particular ATM came and rescued Michelle’s card. None of us are sure how Michelle convinced him to come before noon on a Saturday morning, but we were relieved to be once again, on our way (P.S. at 10:00am)(P.P.S. her ATM card was expired and that’s why the machine ate it…note to self…).

Eventually, at 12:30pm we arrived at Golden Gate National Park (South Africa, not San Francisco) and stopped on the way into the park at a ‘viewpoint.’ This baboon was just sitting on the edge of the cliff checking out the valley below.

After a quick lunch, we set-off on our afternoon hike. The group had elected to climb a peak in the central region of the park and we were all happy to stretch our legs after a back-to-back long night/early morning full of driving. While there were 7 adults and 3 trail maps, I think that everyone was relying on everyone else to lead the way, because in no less than 30 minutes into our 4 hour hike, we were completely off the trail and bushwhacking our way up the mountain. Despite the fact that (like I said) there were 7 adults and 3 trail maps, we never did right our course and proceeded to summit the mountain ‘from the side.’ During the actual ascent, I didn’t think it was all that fun, because it was like being on a treadmill set at maximum elevation – straight up. But, when it was all over and I was drinking a beer, eating a ‘no bake’ cookie and watching the explosion of red and orange reflect off of the cliffs, I agreed with the group that it was ‘more fun’ doing the hike without the trail.

Getting ready to hike
The mountain
Our route
Views from the top
Happy hour
Sunset off of ‘the mushroom’ rock

After the hike, happy hour, and the sunset, we set-off to our next destination in the Drakensberg, Windshoek Lodge. On Sunday, we were going to hike in an area of the Drakensberg called, the Amphitheatre; therefore we drove the 60 kilometers on Saturday evening as to wake-up close to the trailhead. The Amphitheatre proved to be a spectacular hike and included countless meters of exposed chain-link ladders on the side of a cliff. For a few, these were no problem, for others these were not necessarily welcome, but tolerated, and for Doug, well, these were ulcer inducing. Doug doesn’t love heights (unless he’s jumping out of plane or bombing down a run on his snowboard – go figure), and the chain-link ladders nearly made him turn around. Alas, he persevered and here are a few shots from the day.

Windshoek Lodge

The hike
The ladders

The Amphitheatre Post-hike happy hour
On Monday morning at breakfast, as we were planning our drive home to Swaziland, Stephanie mentioned the possibility of stopping at a museum on the way home. We all agreed that this would be a fine idea in order to break-up the drive and to learn a little more about South African/Zulu history. We made our way to the Bloed River Museum and then to the Zulu Museum to see ‘both sides’ of the story.

Bloed River MuseumZulu Museum
This particular side-trip was 20 kilometers down a dirt road and while we had estimated that getting back to the highway by 4:00pm would enable us to reach the border by 6:00pm, before it closed, we were wrong and found ourselves driving 140 kilometers north to the next border crossing, which was open until 8:00pm. That is, until…’side-trip’ number 2 happened and Michelle’s Honda CRV overheated. To make a long story short, because trust me, it is a long one, we were on the side of the road for 4 hours in rural South Africa and obviously ended-up missing the 8:00pm border crossing, too. Due to safety reasons, all 7 of us decided to stay the night in South Africa and to get up at 5:00pm in order to cross the border (finally), which opened at 7:00am on Tuesday morning. Since it was a three-day weekend, all of the employed folks needed to be back to work! All-in-all, it was a fantastic weekend, and my ‘car kit’ got a good workout (we used the water, the coolant, the emergency reflective triangles, the gloves, the headlamp, and the first aid kit (Tao cut his thumb open on a pocket knife while under the hood of the car examining the source of the overheating…). Always an adventure…

Lots of cooks in the kitchenRescue mission