I’m a South African hiker who wants to climb as many mountains as possible. As St Augustine famously said “the world is a book, and those who don’t travel only read one page.”
My home mountain range is the Drakensberg in South Africa, but I try to travel abroad whenever possible.
The reason why I write and maintain this blog is that I intend to keep record of my many trips. Sometimes it is fun to read up on what you were doing five or twenty years ago. If someone finds some useful information on it, or finds my writeups interesting, even better!
I try to write as accurately as possible, but not every part of my trip will be documented in my writeup, and it is written after the fact, so certain aspects might be remembered differently by other team members. Naturally my writeups are told from my perspective, so events will be noted from my viewpoint. My grandfather always used to say “only a corpse is truly free of bias”
This page doesn’t have a PayPal link or any other means of donation as it is not intended to raise funds. If you found it enjoyable and would like to make some form of donation, I would suggest rather making a donation to your favourite charity. My personal favourite is Funda Nenja – a community project in the Mpophomeni region of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. They are doing amazing work and have a very good fund deployment rate – take a look at their website for more information.
Ghaznavid Hiking 
Just getting into speed hiking.. Tried to go up and down Greys pass a few weeks ago but turn around time was 1pm so were about 20 minutes from the top.. may try again in a few weeks. Interested in doing the Northern Traverse as well
Grey’s is a difficult day. You have to make a conscious decision to slow down when you cross the Mhlwazini, or you end up trashed at the base of the pass. I did a 3 day hike there last year – day 1 up Grey’s (took about 8h), day 2 across to Didima, and day 3 down Smugglers Pass. If it wasn’t so overgrown, I would love to try up Grey’s and down Ships Prow in a day – that would be fairly epic!
Hi. You must be one of few people to have hiked up Blesberg, well done. I passed by a few days ago unaware there is a fairly rare Erica up there, hence my interest. Now, after reading your post, im definitely interested in going up solo!. It’s a gem your site. Definitely following you now 🙂
The problem with a 3 day hike is the 20kg pack. I went up greys down Ships prow a few years ago as a 3 day… Ships is tough..I saw some guys on strava did it in a day and complained about it as trail runners!
I do GT’s with 8kg packs. As long as you use caves, your pack should never be close to that heavy. The trick is to use a 30l pack – then you can’t really take anything!
I have done both gullies of Ships Prow, most recently did Nkosasana Cave down Cathkin Mountain Pass, down Shada Ridge to Injisuthi Camp in 10 hours – most of the loss of speed was on the contour path section.
Ps. I don’t recommend Cathkin Mountain Pass to anyone that isn’t very experienced on scree. The pass is fine, but could be dangerous if you pick the wrong line or have bad weather.
Hi, we are novice hikers but have done several cave hikes specifically in Cobham. We enjoy reading your posts. Please could you do a post on your hiking gear used- what you pack? I know it will differ depending on where you go and how many days, but some guidelines for the basic gear used and what sort of food you eat will be appreciated? I alsways struggle to keep weight down on food items and I think we always pack too much so will be great to get some advice. Many thanks! Angela
Hi there. Sorry for the slow reply, I have just returned from a month long trip – which will be up on my blog soon. I will give you a detailed reply to your question when I get a chance.
Hello. I stumbled across your writings by way of my random curiosity and perusal of various Facebook groups. I have found your stories fascinating and impressive. Thank you for sharing your gift of experiences, photos and writings. You probably never imagined that what you do would touch the heart of a 67 yr old lonely lady in Oregon, but it has happened. I look forward to reading about more of your journeys and challenges in life. Thank you very much. Kim West