Grootkloof (Magaliesberg) May 2005

Al and Zelda picked me up from home on Saturday morning. We drove to Sparkling Waters hotel and arrived at about 10am.

Day 1 (1 May): The hike in to the campsite was uneventful. We dropped the packs at the campsite, packed some lunch and other necessities in two bags and set off up the hill. We entered Main Gully quite quickly and were at the chock stone soon. Al abseiled first and took the rope across to slide the bags down. Then Zelda abseiled and I joined them shortly after. The water was pretty cold as expected, but it was still good fun. We continued down the kloof and when we got to the slide rock, I set up a handrail for Al and Zelda. I took the slide again and found quickly that the water was slightly deeper than knee height – a little deeper than what it used to be. We finished the entire kloof in about two and a half hours and sat in the sun drying and having lunch. We then climbed out and walked back to the campsite. The rest of the afternoon we rested and walked a little around camp. Dinner was mince and spaghetti. As we got ready to pack up and go to bed, we heard some rustling behind us. We were pleasantly surprised to find a Small spotted genet that came to look for food. It was fairly tame and both Al and I were able to take some nice pics of it before we finally went to bed.

Day 2 (2 May): After a good night’s sleep we got up late and had a quick breakfast. We left the tent standing to dry and started walking up the side of Ysterhoutkloof. We walked until we spotted the canopy tour in progress and we took a few shots of them as the zipped down the kloof. I was mildly surprised to see that their ziplines crossed over onto MCSA property. We later heard that costs are R395 pp – a little bit steep for us. We then walked up next to the fence and crossed Grootkloof where the path crosses the two gullies from Ronnie Bartlett’s place. It was a bit of a huff and a puff to get back to the top but then it was downhill all the way. We wanted to get into Woodpecker gully but it seemed like it might take up too much time. I therefore aimed back to the campsite but at the junction of Woodpecker gully and Grootkloof we had to negotiate a few rock bands carefully to get back down into Grootkloof. Luckily it was quite easy and we were soon back at the camp. We took the tent down, packed up and walked out. We were back at the hotel just before 12:00. It was a good fun weekend!