Monday 28 May 2012

Drakensberg training hikes

I'm very excited as we have booked and confirmed for our weekend of hiking in the famous Drakensberg.  We will be leaving Johannesburg around 4am on Saturday morning and driving straight to the Sentinel car parking lot where we will start our first hike!  We intend on hiking this beautiful trail all day (around 10 hours) and then driving to Thendele where we will be staying (in the Royal Natal National Park).

On Sunday we will do another hike from our chalet in the park - around 4-5 hours (there are many levels to choose from) before driving back to Johannesburg.  It's about a 4 hour drive to get there, but well worth it!  We generally stay 2 nights, but work, dogs and kids dictate otherwise for this weekend :-)

The main hike for Saturday is known as the Drakensberg Ampitheatre Ascent, and you also get to see the mighty Tugela falls - in total 5 rivers have their source here!! It's also famous for the chain ladders we have to ascend/descend to get to the top - quite open and scary, but lots of fun!
I will be posting the 2 hikes under their own headings as there is quite a lot of information on each - and it also makes it easier for reference.

We are staying in one of the self catering chalet's in the Thendele Hutted Camp - we've stayed there before (when we were training for Mount Kilimanjaro) and it really is lovely! Think rustic, warm fires and lots of red wine...unless you have serious hiking ahead :-)

I will report back on the hikes and up to date information over the weekend...images below are of the chain ladders, the falls and Thendele Hutted Camp.






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