The Drakensberg Six

My weekend hiking excursion in the Drakensberg Mountains was amazing, but extreme. I had a blast hiking with John, Nick, Erin, Maddie, and Katie. Yes, John did decide to come the last second, but it was fun to have him.

Sentinel Peak

On Thursday, we set out around 6:00pm and headed towards East London. East London is a rather popular and large city up the west coast of South Africa. Even though most "large" cities here aren't very large. We found our way through the dark because it is beginning to get dark around 5:30pm and 6:00pm now. John drove us their in our rental car, a manual Toyota Corolla. We decided to stay the night at Buffalo Backpackers. We rested up and woke early and took off towards Drakensberg. The entire drive is about thirteen hours long so we wanted to get on the road as soon as possible. We plowed through tons of cities until we hit Drakensberg around 4pm on Friday. However, we ended up coming in on the opposite side of the mountain. We arrived at a car park on the west side rather than the east. With this detour, we decided to just go with the flow and stay the night at this camp site which ended up being quite enjoyable. We hiked around the area and found a nice spot to check out the stars and then made our way back to the tents and had a small fire. This camp site must have been a popular one, though. There was tons of people staying the night.

Once again, we woke early Saturday morning and quickly packed our gear and headed around to the other side of the park to where we originally thought we would end up. The road to this car park was mainly gravel and our little Corolla was doing a good job going through it but there was one spot where we didn't want to take the chance and get stuck. So, we just parked the car on the side of the road which led to the car park and got out and hiked the rest. About 20 minutes later we arrived at the car park. Here we had to fill out paperwork that asked information about us, our appearance, and the gear we were carrying. This is because if we got lost or injured, they could use this information to rescue us off the mountain. After that was set we filled our water bottles one last time and started the hike up the side of Sentinel Peak. This was about a three hour hike overall. Our destination was the amphitheater of the Drakensberg Mountains.

It's a long way down!

We continued the climb up the side of the mountain while having to cross some sketchy areas where we had to either quickly jump across or scoot ourselves over slippery slopes. It may sound lame, but it wasn't. Some were fairly intense because if you were to get stuck or slip, you could fall quite a ways. Thankfully, this didn't happen to any of us. The big thing with this specific hike up is the chain ladders one has to use to reach the top. After about two hours of hiking we finally reached the chain ladders. These were two sets of ladders that scaled the side of the mountain. From bottom to top it had to be around 60-80 feet. Just an estimate. So, quite a ways up by ladder. The chain ladders were bolted in at the top but hung freely over the side of the mountain. So as we climbed, the wind would pick up and kind of shake and blow the ladder. When you are 50 feet up with nothing holding you to this ladder, it gets a bit scary. Definitely one of the most intense things I've done on my study abroad. We each just took it one step at a time and didn't take our eyes off the mountain side that was in front of us. Lots of encouraging words were being said too. Once we had all climbed the ladders and reached the top we took a breather and then headed up the last piece of our hike.

View from the top of the Drakensberg

Within an hour we were standing on the edge of the Drakensberg Mountains. It was a breathtaking view. The amphitheater allows you to see the entire range because it is the center of it all. Also, this is the home of the second highest waterfall in the world so we took our time checking that out and getting a feel for the water. It's a drier time so the waterfall wasn't flowing fast or anything. You could easily walk across this section and stand in it. After, we hiked another 3 kilometers or so until we found a nice flat spot to set up camp. Now it was around 6:00pm so the sun was going down.

On the mountain, when the sun goes down so does the temperature. I don't think I have ever experienced such extreme changes in temperature. During the day the temp must have been at least 70 or 80 degrees. At night, the temp dropped to a freezing 30 or even high 20's. This is because we were 10,000 feet up and the wind was blowing. We took a second to star gaze, eat, and celebrate our achievement (and Easter) with some wine before piling into the two tents to warm up and play cards. We talked and played cards for about an hour until we started feeling tired. It's funny, when the sun goes down and you have no other source of light the next best thing is to go to bed. So we all went to bed around 8:00pm...on a Saturday. We had a good laugh about this. As you know, this isn't really the norm for college kids ha. John and I were in one tent and the other four were in the second tent. Let me tell you, when you wake up in the middle of the night, the wind is ripping at your tent, and you realize your on top of a mountain, you truly feel like a mountain climber. I liked this feeling, but my body didn't like the wind or cold that it was bringing. We all fought through the night falling in and out of sleep until around 6:00am.

Keeping warm in the tent

We all piled out of the tent at this time on Sunday morning to watch the sunrise on Easter. Celebrating this way atop a mountain was amazing. Absolutely phenomenal. After the sunrise, we all went back to the tents for about two hours to stay warm. At around 8 we packed our gear up and went for a long hike across the amphitheater. At this time, the wind had finally died down and we began to slowly strip off the layers we had applied the night before. It only took us two hours to go from 4 layers to 1, that's how fast the temperature rose. We hiked for about 7 kilometers. This is where we came to the border of South Africa and Losotho. The Drakensberg Mountains lie on the border of both countries. We walked into Losotho and spent a few hours roaming around and eating lunch in Losotho. Technically, we were there illegally - yeah, I'm a rebel. We all sat down and took about an hour nap to rest up as well as go to the bathroom. Now, we were on top of a mountain. There are no bathrooms on top of mountains. I'm sure you can use your imagination on how this all went down. Yeah... hey it's all a part of the experience, though. I can also asure you that there are rules laid out for how to do this kind of stuff. All were followed, no worries ha.

Easter Morning

Once we had rested up we set out towards the center of the amphitheater again. The trek back was a long one. Once we had got back, we knew we wanted to work our way down a bit of the mountain so we could leave early and get to the car and head out on Monday morning. We had always expected to go slowly down a gorge that led to the path below.

However, the gorge we wanted to go down was far from where we were and difficult to reach. This wasn't what all of us wanted to hear considering we vowed to never again go to the chain ladders. Our team of six was good at overcoming obstacles, though, and we knew if we had done it once we could do it again. Yet, this time we were heading down the ladders, not up. From the top you only see a chain ladder that disappears as it goes down the side of the mountain. We all took a second to collect ourselves and set out to go down. I led the group and was the first to go. I hugged the side of the mountain. Man, I hugged that wall like I was one of those characters you see in romantic movies who hugs his girlfriend and they seem to have this never-ending embrace. Yeah, that was me and this wall. Reaching out for the ladder and positioning myself on it was the worst part. Once on it, I just told myself to go one step at time. It also didn't help to be carrying a 50lb pack of clothes, tents, sleeping bags, and food on my back. Nonetheless, I made it down. Slowly, one by one everyone made it to the bottom. That's when we all took the time for a quick group hug. Then the fun part came when we headed down the path towards the cave we were going to stay in over night.

On the edge of the world

We reached the cave after about 20 minutes. We were worried we weren't going to find it because it was tucked away. If we hadn't, I'm not sure where we would have slept. The path wasn't large enough for our tents. Anyways, the cave was so cool! It was this massive hole in the side of the mountain that led to a perfect flat stone area big enough for two or three tents. We put up our tents and then went down to see the sunset and stars. After, we made our way back up to the cave and played cards. This time we were able to stay up till about ten before going to bed. This night was much warmer with the cave blocking the wind. However, the stone surface we slept on wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. We woke at daybreak and headed down the last part of the mountain until we hit the car park.

Our home for the night. Cave life!

There, we checked back in to let them know we had all made it. Then we made our way down to the car and piled in. It was about 8:30am when we left. John got us onto the main roads and this is where I took over. Between John and I, our experience with driving manual cars ranges from golf carts (John) to motorcycles (Me). Now, we were expected to drive through South Africa, on the left side of the road, in a manual car, for thirteen hours. Yup. Thankfully, I picked it up quite quickly. I understood how it all worked considering I ride a motorcycle, however, using the clutch with your foot and shifting gears with your hand is different. Getting used to the left side of the road actually wan't hard at all. Maybe this was because I was to focused on trying to make sure the car would roll to worry about which side of the road to be on. About 5 minutes of practicing in a parking lot, I was on the road. I actually really enjoyed driving a manual. It's fun and, come on, you know it's cooler. I made it to the high way and cruised on back to P.E. By the time we made it home, I knew how to work every control in that car. I drove through rain, lightning, unbelievably dense fog (seriously, have never seen fog like this before), and had to fill up the tank. Plus the controls are all opposite - blinkers being on the right side rather than left, etc. Also, John and I would laugh because we were practically native South Africans by the way we drove. When passing, which happens all. the. time., you would flash your hazards if they allowed you to go around. This is how you say "Thanks!" and then they would flash their brights to say "You're welcome." Ha, every time this happened we would get a good laugh cause we felt like we were locals. I was happy to be able to drive the car, though.

For our last stop, we all went to Spur which is a burger joint here. On Mondays they have a special buy one get one free burger deal. All for 55 rand. Around $5.50. Super good deal and it was great to get a big, hot meal to end our weekend.

All and all, the weekend was absolutely amazing and I am very glad to have gone on this excursion. National Geographic has a few "epic" hikes and this was one of them. It was also a wonderful way to spend Easter even though I did miss celebrating with the family. All 6 of us that went on the hike ended up calling ourselves the "Drakensberg Six" and plan to have a less intense reunion next year while camping in the Saint John's arboretum.