Rhebok hiking trail (Drakensberg) Apr 2008

After work I drove to Gordon’s parents’ place to pick him and Nicola up. We left at 16:45 and drove on the R21/R24. Traffic wasn’t too bad except the usual delays at Gillooleys. We bought something to eat at the Engen at Villiers and by 21:00 we were at Glen Reenen. The campsite was locked but we woke a guard at the petrol station who opened up and we quickly set up the tent on a concrete caravan stand. Gordon wanted to sleep outside but was soon chased into the tent by mozzies.

Day 1 (5 Apr): My alarm went off at 05:00. It was a cool morning but the brilliant stars heralded a beautiful day. Just after 06:00 we were on our way and walked well to the top of Sentinel. Then we climbed down to the path that skirted the lower slopes before climbing to the ridge from where the path led to the Backside. It was a gloriously beautiful day and despite the wet grass dampening my socks and boots, the hiking was brilliant. We stopped for a short break where the path dipped to the stream. Then we carried on and soon found ourselves having another short break just before the Wilgenhof house before descending down to the road. We crossed the road shortly after 10:00 and beat a group on horseback to the hut at 11:15. We were planning on carrying on to the saddle between Ribbok Kop and Generaals kop but clouds had started to build and threaten since 09:30. At the hut they were starting to look darker and we immediately started a fire to cook our lunch/dinner. I made the call to stay at the hut instead of carrying on. With the fire still burning brightly we heated some garlic bread and cooked mushrooms that Nicola brought for dinner. These we had for lunch. When the fire settled into some nice coals we put on pork sausages and lamb sosaties, but these were not done yet when the first rain drops started. Luckily it wasn’t the break of a big storm yet so we kept the meat on the braai. However, not long after we took the meat off, the rain came down hard. We spent most of the afternoon reading in bed before we started dinner at around 17:30. The rain had killed our fire completely but with a lull after dinner we decided to start it up again. We got a roaring fire going again before rain once more started pelting down and we headed back into our beds. Later we got up once more and noticed a few embers clinging to life – stars have come out above and we stood outside for a while longer until the sky was once more covered with cloud.

Day 2 (6 Apr): During the night it rained some more and when Gordon’s alarm went off, the rain was pelting the roof. We listened to a number of snooze alarms before finally getting up and ready. The weather was cold, wet and miserable and I decided to can the day’s planned walk and just walk out to the road and back to camp. At 07:00 we were on our way and slipped and slid on the muddy road all the way to the stables. Here we got on the tar road and walked back to Glen Reenen, arriving around 08:30. We had a quick shower, before going to the office to pay for our trip.