13 December Hiking in the Drakensberg

Our host, Jennifer, served us a splendid and huge breakfast of home grown and home raised produce. We felt we needed the energy reserve for our walk in the Drakensberg, a World Heritage Site, today. At Jennifer's suggestion we were going to visit Highmoor Wilderness Reserve today.

view of Drakensberg

Highmoor Wilderness Reserve is an hour drive from Rosetta first along tarmacked roads (with potholes) which lead up past dairy farms and horse studs, more B&Bs, until the tarmac runs out and you're on a track. However, at the entrance to the park we reverted to tarmac climbing up to the plateau at 2000m above sea level. The highest peaks are a 1000m to 1400m higher. By 10.30am the morning fog had been burnt off by the sun and we were greeted with magnificent views of the high escarpment. The ridge we could see high above would be the border with Lesotho. We weren't going that far, just 5kms in to the Caracal caves walking over grassy moor land. The sky was an intense blue, there was a light breeze and no-one else around. All was well with the world.

colourful bug

Our walk, it's and easy and clearly marked track, took us past lakes filled with rainbow trout for anglers, past eland antelopes, Blaskop (white face antelope), small duiker deer and many colourful birds which I don't know the names of. It took a couple of hours to reach the top of the caves and then it was a steep climb down in to the vast cave, once the home of the San tribes people. Nowadays hikers can camp here overnight.

cave interior

We spent time searching for rock paintings which we'd been led to believe were here. We later found this was spurious information and there are no rock paintings in this cave, but it was still interesting and the views out to the escarpment beyond was wonderful.

Another couple of hours back, at the start a slog uphill in stronger breezes, and we were back at the ranger house and car park. A glorious day; we were fortunate to have a picked clear and sunny day, nature provided the glorious.

looking out from Caracal cave