Just a quick report on what was the "August Hike"
Horst and I met Greg from the "Drag a Bag" hiking group on a recent Heritage Hike, and
after some conversation, duly received an invitation to join them on their August Hike.
Horst, Rosario and I accepted.
19 people reported for duty at the Base Camp (Sappi property) next to the Malaga Hotel...
Quite a large percentage of what I felt were 'generic' single ladies..all much same look, age etc
but everyone most pleasant. Bit more regimented than we are."07h30 departure - pronto..10 minute
tea stop at such and such a time, lunch at 13h00 for an hour" etc, but not a problem. We all slack packed to the next camp.
Quite basic accommodation but everything that we needed, and not cold.....
Perfect weather with a gentle cool breez...14 kms and 10 kms, but didn't seem long. Lovely hiking over hill and dale right to top which was satisfying...no water on the first day, but fabulous distant views, craggy red cliffs, rolling teddy bear hills, long shady riverine walks, stands of aloes, plantations of sappi trees, wildflowers, blossoming trees, ... etc... and on the second day...two of the highest, most dramatic waterfalls EVER seen on a hike!! Absolutely fabulous!!! Mountains of meat braaied and very 'gesellig' evening..
All in all an excellent hike (we need to do it again when there is more water over those falls. Famous Last Words!)
and nice to meet interesting new people. I observed closely how 20 people managed to be together comfortably, as
that will be us next month at Injasuti!
Thank you for that Jenny, but you haven't written much about the actual hike, let me fill in a bit here.
The hike started from the overnight hut along the Elansriver for about a kilometer before it turned away from the river. Going up and up, unrelentingly to 1700m. Lovely country site mostly through grass land interspersed with big aloes and a few cabbage trees.
At the top the walking became more enjoyable, the route was flat with only minor ups and downs. Near the end of this section we took a step down and got to the hut at 1350m, that was after passing a nice pool which would have invited for a swim had it not been so cold, the water and the air.
Nice hut, but alas the showers gave us some trouble. There was a lack of gas and only one of the showers could be activated. Some people just didn't shower.
Next morning first up a bit to about 1450m to the two water falls. Not sure what they were called. Very impressive, the first one had a major drop of about 50m, even more impressive it would have been if we had more water coming down. The second fall had a big, swimable pool below, most come back in summer.
From here on a steady descend to the starting hut. We passed many stone circles and also noticed a grinding stone, indicating that the Bokomo people had lived here once, many years ago.