We had a 4 day getaway this weekend for the photography group to the Drakensburg mountains. It included hikes and photography workshops with Emil who spent the first week with us here.
Friday we were up and in the van by 5:00am to head out for the long drive. It was 3 hours to Durban where we picked up Emil and then another 3 or 4 hours to our destination. The first night we were camping so we got to the campground and set up our tents. The camp ground was lovely with really nice bathrooms. Right away we went for a short hike up to some waterfalls and climbed all around them taking photos and learning the technique to make the water look milky. I absolutely loved it. The photos were so cool. This is something I’ve always been interested.I had a pretty crappy sleep. Our mats were pretty thin, I was freezing cold and there was some bird that chirped off and on all night. We were up at 5:00 again and headed to a river that came out of the amphitheater which is basically a big, beautiful rock wall. We took photos as the sun came up and shone light on the rock. It was beautiful and nice and quiet and peaceful.
After the sunrise we got back for breakfast, packed up and hit the road. Just a 20 minute drive and we started our hike. It was a fairly good hike. Got the blood pumping and the sweat going as it was a pretty warm day. We’ve got several older guys in our group who smoke so they struggled quite a bit. But it was good. It was 8 km up and it took about 3 hours which included some break stops and photo stops. At the very top we wound across the river and came up to a canyon type thing where we went and took photos. We had to take our shoes off and go barefoot and it was freezing and the rocks were tough to walk on so that didn’t last a real long time but it was very cool in there. The lighting wasn’t great so I didn’t get many good photos
We had a 2 hour drive around the mountain range to the other side to our accommodations for the next 2 nights. We were up at 3:30 am and on the trail at 4:00am. The first part took about an hour and we just walked in the dark with our head torches. It was weird not having any idea of where you were going but just plotting along. We arrived at our first stop before the sun was up and got set up and waited for the big show. It was a beautiful sunrise and I really enjoyed it.We had our breakfast then hiked on around the mountain below the face of the rock. Then we came to the ladder! We had to go up 40 meters on a ladder that went pretty much straight up the rock face. It was a bit unnerving but not bad at all. I thought I’d take a peak down as I was going up but that wasn’t the best idea. At the top we walked across a big meadow beside a river from a spring and came to the far side of the mountain and looked over to see the river fall over the edge, the 2nd longest water fall in the world. It is the same river that we walked along yesterday, which was kinda neat. It was amazing and beautiful view. We hiked up to the top of the mountain for our lunch which was at 10:30. I believe we were somewhere above 3000 meters above sea level.
Instead of going all the way back the way we came, we scaled down a little (but steep and long) gully between to ridges. It was about 70 meters down, and at about 45 degrees steep and full of rocks that we had to climb over and around so it was pretty sketchy at some points. My knees and leg muscles were pretty sore by the time I got to the bottom. We continued to hike down back to the car and arrived all safe and sound by 12:40!! It was weird to have such a big hike done by so early in the day.
Only 5 of our group of 8 did the second day hike but we were all glad we did. It definitely made any hiking I’ve done in the past seem pretty Mickey Mouse. I had such a great time and feel really proud of myself for accomplishing it. I saw some amazing things and hopefully have some photos to show for it.
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