After the beach and the bush we headed to the berg – the Drakensberg that is – the mountain range in South Africa split into three main sections: North, Central, and South. After leaving Kruger we spent a few days in Nelspruit to unwind, update the blog and sleep in a bed after sleeping in the tent for 2 weeks straight. We met a couple (Daniel and Kristina) from the Czech Republic in the backpackers and we hit it off with them. At first we only started chatting with Daniel and it wasn’t until we returned from getting our passport photos taken for our Indian Visa that we really got to know Daniel. We walked into the backpackers and it seemed quiet…a little too quiet. We rounded the corner into the kitchen to find a bottle of real absinth (which we later learned that Daniel brought from the Czech Republic) half empty. A second later Daniel popped into the kitchen and insisted we join in on the festivities! He and the backpacker’s owner were good friends who go way back and what better a way to catch up than over a bottle of absinth while their wives were on a day trip! So we didn’t hesitate and within seconds we were in on the absinth action! Needless to say it was a really fun day and we got to know each other fairly well. The next day we went hiking up to a waterfall about a 30 minute drive from the hostel near a small village called Kaapsche Hoop. After we returned we got to play with some two-week-old puppies that the family dog had just before we passed through Nelspruit the first time.
Before we jump into this blog post we just wanted to say how happy we are to have our friends and families reading the blog. It means a lot to us and we have been writing more posts so that everyone can continue to enjoy them. Unfortunately the internet situation in South Africa is rather bleak and so we find ourselves going without normal internet for weeks on end. When we do get some fast internet we usually spend a day or two uploading blog posts and strategically releasing them over the course of a few days so as to not overdose our readers with too much excitement. Anyway, all we wanted to say was thanks for reading and being patient... we really do appreciate it. After the beach and the bush we headed to the berg – the Drakensberg that is – the mountain range in South Africa split into three main sections: North, Central, and South. After leaving Kruger we spent a few days in Nelspruit to unwind, update the blog and sleep in a bed after sleeping in the tent for 2 weeks straight. We met a couple (Daniel and Kristina) from the Czech Republic in the backpackers and we hit it off with them. At first we only started chatting with Daniel and it wasn’t until we returned from getting our passport photos taken for our Indian Visa that we really got to know Daniel. We walked into the backpackers and it seemed quiet…a little too quiet. We rounded the corner into the kitchen to find a bottle of real absinth (which we later learned that Daniel brought from the Czech Republic) half empty. A second later Daniel popped into the kitchen and insisted we join in on the festivities! He and the backpacker’s owner were good friends who go way back and what better a way to catch up than over a bottle of absinth while their wives were on a day trip! So we didn’t hesitate and within seconds we were in on the absinth action! Needless to say it was a really fun day and we got to know each other fairly well. The next day we went hiking up to a waterfall about a 30 minute drive from the hostel near a small village called Kaapsche Hoop. After we returned we got to play with some two-week-old puppies that the family dog had just before we passed through Nelspruit the first time. We drove from Nelspruit to the furthest northern park named Royal Natal National Park. We took Daniel and Kristina along with us and dropped them off on the outskirts of the park as they planned to hitch-hike out of the area early the next morning. On our way driving we passed a really interesting municipality building in a small town. It looked more like a palace and to us really shows the contrast between excessive wealth and extreme poverty, which is prevalent throughout South Africa and took us a bit of time to get used to. Our first night was a bit chilly but we were anticipating waking up early the next morning and getting to hike in the berg all day; however…this is what we woke up to! The snow continued to fall so we decided to pack up and drive back to Durban and get our India visas sorted and after a quick two nights in Durban we headed back to the berg. On our drive north from Durban we quickly hit a lot of traffic. It was a long weekend here in South Africa (Women’s Day on a Thursday and so many people took the Friday off as well) and everyone was making their way out of the city. But, because of the snow fall a day and a half earlier the highways had been closed and had remained closed until just a few hours before we got on them. As we first started to see snow on the hillsides we noticed that a lot of vehicles were pulling over on the side of the highway and everyone was getting out to go play! Turns out many of the people that live in and around Durban have never seen snow, so it was cool to watch some first timers build snowmen! It wasn’t all fun and games for us however as we eventually hit stop dead traffic on the main highway that connects Durban to Joburg. What we found odd, was that in the opposite lane there were only transport trucks stopped and no small vehicles. We got out of the car and started talking to some of the locals (who were now building snowmen) and they explained that the trucks had been held up for a couple days by the traffic police because the road was too unsafe to drive on because of the snowstorm. Of course, rather than having the road cleaned so that the truckers could go on their merry way, the traffic police simply closed the road with the truckers on it and left. Our side of the road however had been opened in the meantime and was now being blocked by truckers who were protesting that the opposite lane had been closed for so long! The truckers who were blocking our lanes said that they would lift their barricade only when their trucker buddies were free to go in the opposite one. Finally after sitting on the highway for an hour and a half the truckers lifted their blockade and we were on our way. This time in the Drakensberg we were greeted by sunny skies and warm temperatures! We spent the first few days hiking in Royal Natal National Park to a couple places. The first place we hiked to was called the Gorge and was exactly as its name implied. It was a deep canyon with some really cool rock tunnels that we could explore. There were also some hair raising scrambles up a slope to get to a lookout. We had a tough time getting up and we were shocked to see a group of seniors make their way up behind us. One of the ladies said, “I can get up but I’m not sure I’ll make it down!” And both Courtney and I said the same thing! The next day we decided to take a shorter but more scenic hike up a route called the crack and then returned to our camp via a route known as the mudslide. Both routes were aptly named as you’ll see from the pictures below. The crack was a steep scramble between two massive towers of rock and the mudslide was an even steeper scramble through a thickly forested area with numerous chains and ladders fixed to the route to make passage possible. After Royal Natal we headed south to Monks Cowl for a little more hiking but we didn’t actually know what to expect there and we had been wanting to get an overnight hike in at some point too. Instead of staying in the park we stayed at a nearby backpackers called Inkosana Lodge where we sought some expert advice from the owner Ed. Ed helped us plan our route into the backcountry to find a cave known as the Zulu Cave. The paths in the backcountry here are not marked and sometimes the trail isn’t visible or is just nonexistent so all the backcountry exploration we did back in Canada paid off when we couldn’t find our trail for a good portion of the route. We were able to use the good old fashioned topographic map to keep ourselves heading in the right direction. When we found Zulu Cave we were really surprised to find five other guys there because we hadn’t seen anyone all day on the trail with the exception of a few tiny people way in the distance on a different trail below us. It was a group of four Americans and their South African guide who lived in Calgary for ten years. Needless to say we hit it off immediately with them and spent the evening swapping silly camping stories and gossiping about South African soap operas…I mean politics. When the stars came out so did the Kentucky Bourbon and the conversations became even more interesting. It was a fun night. The next morning we got up slowly, ate some oatmeal and started the solid five hour trek out. We only had one more place that we wanted to hike at so we made our way to Didima camp near Cathedral Peak, only a stone’s throw north of where we were. Our plan was to spend one day hiking to the top of Cathedral Peak but our plans changed when we were woken from our sleep at around 12:30AM by the contractors who were staying in our campsite. They were just getting home from the bar and making dinner outside of the safari tent they were living in, which happened to be quite close to our site. We didn’t get to sleep until around 2AM so that shattered all hopes of us hiking by 5:30. We weren’t thrilled about that and the campsite itself was run down in a bad way. Toilets didn’t flush, sinks leaked, ants coated the countertops. I know what you’re thinking: yes we were camping and we should be roughing it right? Well not after spending a month and a half in some of the nicest and cleanest campgrounds we’ve stayed in in our entire lives! So we complained and we were upgraded to a fancy hut with a kitchen, bathroom, king size bed and satellite TV! Jackpot!! When we saw the place we didn’t even care to hike anymore but so we didn’t feel too bad we went for a short hike and then returned to enjoy our day of luxury in the hut! We also played some tennis to top it off!
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