South Africa – Drakensberg (Mafadi)

Day 1 - Injisuthi Camp (1500m) - Centenary hut (2200m): I was ‘ooohing’ and ‘aahhing’ all the way from Pretoria to Injisuthi hutted camp. We left after 4 and had the full moon, the rising sun and all the birds perched on the telephone lines to gawp at. And then it was the beautiful mountains. My estimated "walk in the park” - only 10km and a 700m ascent turned out to be 5 hours of serious huffing and puffing and some nice river crossings. Boy - was I glad to see the hut. After pitching the tents Ian started the meal - pasta, bacon and eggs. Since he always insists on hiking in style, loads of luxuries were dragged up. Nope - crazier they don't come - but there is definitely some improvement. The 5 bottles of red wine and the deck chair were left behind on this hike. Some really tired people had some Irish coffee and then I crawled into my newly acquired tent. And I could not have wished for better testing weather. At one stage I thought Bernelle and I were going to be blown off the hill but we survived - and most importantly - we remained dry (PS: Ear plugs should accompany tent when the wind is howling). The next day I was informed that I should pitch my tent parallel to gullies.

Our first river crossing

Day 2 - Centenary hut (2200m) - somewhere in Lesotho (+- 3000m): The huffing and puffing started almost immediately and when we reached Corner pass Ian declared me officially crazy for choosing this specific route. We stopped for tea on some obscure spot and then everyone seemed to notice that I was a bit pale. I was disorientated, nauseous and everything looked red to me.

Luckily I was declared fit by Bernelle after informing her that the grass still looked green and by the time we were forced to take shelter I was feeling on top of the world again. Ropes were pulled out a couple of times - whether it was necessary or just for moral support - it worked and after 7 hours we were finally on top of Corner Pass. It took us another two hours of hiking in the mist before we decided to pitch the tents.

Going up via Corner pass

Waiting for the hail storm to stop

We had different opinions:

• I said I knew we were either in South Africa or Lesotho
• Bernelle thought we weren't in Swaziland (or Switzerland for that matter)
• Ian thought we were close to Mafadi and
• Harry's gps said we were only 700m away from corner pass. That evening while Ian made supper, Harry asked
• me why we punish ourselves like this.

The next day after intensive map reading and scouting it was decided that Harry’s GPS was right. We had been walking around in circles.

Day 3 - somewhere in Lesotho - top of Leslie Pass: Ian and I spend some time looking for Injusiti cave. At one stage we met a Basutu and he indicated that Mafadi was west - but alas - Harry's gps said Mafadi was about 100m east - and voila - what a magnificent sight. There were a lot of birds of prey circling around and after something hot on South Africa's highest peak we started looking for the Injusiti summit cave - another splendid sight.

Injasuthi Cave

And seeing that we were all so very fit (sic) we decided to take a scenic route to Leslie's pass and 9 hours after packing up our tents we pitched it again. (And no - I was not grumpy when I sneaked off to go and have an ice cold swim after Ian refused to give me some hot water for my usual bath - I was being considerate towards Harry – he’s not used to swearing females.)

Day 4 - Leslie Pass - Injusiti hutted camp (8 hours). It was absolutely breathtaking once on top of Leslie's pass and between all the tears I could finally answer Harry's question. I just wish more people can experience the breathtaking beauty of the Berg. We were on top of the clouds for at least 2 hours before the mist rolled in. The sound affects following every fall was quite something considering that Ian's one fall was the only ungracious one I saw. But we all survived the scree and rock scrambling and Bernelle got her picture taken in the Marble bath pools. While the rest were having lunch I went to inspect Marble Cave - and when I informed them that the sign said it was Grindstone Cave, Bernelle just shook her head - I don't think anyone would have been surprised if we were in the wrong pass - but it turned out that someone switched the signs and that for once we were where we thought we were.

Mafadi