The Mnweni Needles are one of the more striking features of the Drakensberg. For some reason, they are often overlooked, and are rarely climbed. In 2017 I attempted to climb them, but a combination of heavy climbing packs and underestimating how slow the approach would be resulted in a 3 day hike to the saddle […]
In August 2019, when I agreed to relocate to Gauteng for work purposes, I knew my days of being in the Drakensberg every few weeks were about to come to an end. To make up for it, between September and December 2019, I did 13 hikes totaling 339km in the Drakensberg and including 14 passes […]
After 7 days, the final Saturday of my trip to the Western Cape had arrived. The plan for the day was simple – Cape Town has one of the most famous mountain skylines, with three distinct peaks. So naturally one has to start on the outer ridge of one peak, hike across all three and […]
After the Hex Traverse, I took a long scenic drive through to Betty’s Bay. It rained for a lot of the drive – which is unusual in November. I had been planning on climbing Hangklip in the morning, so seeing as I had arrived early, I decided to take a drive. After 5 continuous days […]
When I was little, we used to have a box of tapes and accompanying books with the full text, I guess it would be called an audiobook today, although I don’t think the term was used at the time. The stories ranged from full fiction, such as Grogre the Ogre, to South African heroic history […]
Only a few weeks after hearing about its existence, suddenly my plan for the day was to climb Matroosberg. After a very successful day 1 of my Cape Trip, I decided to have a relatively easy day 2. Matroosberg is the 3rd most prominent mountain in South Africa, although my research had told me it […]
Du Toit’s Peak – SA’s most prominent mountain. What a spectacular and epic hike this was!
Twas Heritage Day, and the mountains fairDid rise above like an owlAll smokey was the mountain airAnd the Berg winds did howl Ok, before I butcher Lewis Carol’s poem Jabberwocky any further, I’m going to leave my poor attempt at poetry there! After a very long absence from the mountains, with leisure inter-provincial travel being […]
My first trip to the Drakensberg was a hike up to Tiger Falls when I was 6 years old. I remember it being so steep and difficult, I remember a super scary bridge over the river that looked like a slide and had no protection on the side, I remember a sketchy traverse above a […]
I have always considered Vergelegen to be very appropriately named. A region of the Drakensberg tucked between Lotheni and Sani Pass – with no campsite and a poor quality jeep track as the most common access, it is most certainly not the most inviting region of the Drakensberg. I first visited Vergelegen in 2017 and […]
Ghaznavid Hiking 
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