Love the Drakes

15 Nov 2008: Love the Drakes

Headed up to the Drakensburg mountain range Saturday with the other MGH resident, Rachel Grisham, who got in last night. We drove out to Royal Natal park in the northern region of the mountain range and set out for a 20 km round trip hike towards the Amphitheater, a spectacular arc of 3000m peaks rising nearly vertically up out of the valley, just begging for big-wall adventure. Instead, we strolled (though Rachel called my early pace a “jog”, so I slowed up) across a gorge headed for Tugela Falls, a popular trail. We started late enough in the day, though, that we didn’t see too many people most of the way, just a handful of groups coming back and one group whom we passed on the way out.

Around the 9 km mark (by my estimation), we were making excellent time and I was wondering why people said it should take 3 hours each way (it had been maybe 2). Then things got interesting. It started with a simple class 2 scramble down a small slope to lead to a stream crossing via rock-hopping (or fording, as Rachel opted for). And from then on, it didn’t let up, as the trail stayed class 2 and we crossed the river 3 more times (again, me hopping rocks, Rachel fording). Going was slow, as they said on the Oregon Trail. Eventually we got to a place where a rickety ladder of wood rails connected by chain link about as thick as barbed-wire led up maybe 35 feet to a ridge on a cliff. There was no vista to be gained by this climb, so we passed, though other groups shinnied up, only to come back down. Instead, we headed off to the left, across the river once more, where the trail continued to switch back up a hillside to give us our best view of Tugela Falls (which was still from quite a ways across the valley). We could have pressed on, but my read was that we wouldn’t get a better view than we had, and I think it was the right time for us to head back. So we grabbed lunch beneath a little rock outcropping (me: Snickers) and headed back the way we came. Though the falls were a bit of a disappointment, the stream crossings added some fun, and the valley we walked through as well as the mountains all around were spectacular. The weather was glorious too, perhaps a bit too hot and sunny to be perfect hiking weather, but a genuinely pleasant day.

On the way up, just before the start of the numerous river crossings, we had seen a couple of monkeys up on a ledge high above the trail. They seemed to be pacing the ledge and eyeballing us hikers. Later on as we returned, we heard yelling that sounded like monkeys, and looking back in the direction of the ruckus, sure enough, we saw one of them again on a ledge above the trail, and he descended the ledge to swing into the forest we were hiking through. Rachel got a bit worried, so she set the pace the rest of the way out and tried to hightail it as best she could! Speaking of simians, we had an amusing incident on the way in, as perched less than 20 feet from a sign reading “do not feed the baboons”, a baboon ate calmly by the side of the road. He did not seem bothered when I backed the car up to take pictures. Clearly, not everyone has been obeying this particular sign.

After the hike, we went to the “Tower of Pizza”, a pleasant local joint that was actually mentioned in Lonely Planet. It was tasty enough, and I enjoyed their homemade ginger beer and sampled the last of the three South African beer labels, verifying indeed that they all taste the same, while Rachel had a famous Savanna cider. We were debating whether or not to stay the night; I wanted to check out some of the San rock art, but I got vetoed (“isn’t it just graffiti?”). This sharing a car thing is trickier than I anticipated! Anyway, it was early enough that we headed back to Northdale and planned to do some local stuff Sunday.