August 19-24: The Drakensberg

After leaving the Blood River Heritage Park, I headed to the Drakensberg Mountains, first to Royal Natal National Park in the northern portion and then to the Cobham section of Maloti-Drakensberg Park in the southern portion.

My first three days were spent in the northern portion of the Drakensberg in Royal Natal National Park. This Park is 31 square miles located in KwaZulu-Natal Province at the northern end of the Drakensberg and forms part of the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site as well as the Maloti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation Area Peace Park along with protected lands in the abutting country of Lesotho.

Like most of South Africa, the Drakensberg Mountains were once the hunting ground of the San people (bushmen) – remember them from the movie “The Gods Must be Crazy”. The San were largely nomadic, hunter-gatherers and though the San no longer live in the area, they recorded their exploits in the form of remarkable rock paintings, and the Park is notable for its concentration of recorded sites. On my first hike, I came upon a small bit of San rock art in the form of a couple of pictographs dated to be about 8,000 years old. The San inhabited the region for at least 40,000 years and perhaps even longer. Can you imagine a culture lasting that length of time, given that our Euro-American culture is only 400 years old?

The flagship natural feature of the park is the Drakensberg Amphitheater, a rock wall 3.1 miles long by up to 3,900 feet high. Tugela Falls cascades down from the head of the Amphitheater and is purported to be the world’s highest waterfall at 983 meters or 3,900 feet. Unfortunately, there has been no rain in this region since May and thus everything is dry and most of the streams aren’t even running, except for a trickle. The stream source for Tugela is a watershed in Lesotho up on top of the plateau and escarpment, and there is no water in it, as I confirmed on both of my hikes. So, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see the actual waterfall in action. Approaching the Park by car and seeing the Amphitheater from a distance is quite striking, as shown here:

Note the tall block-shaped peak anchoring the right side of the Amphitheater; that’s Sentinel Peak which figures prominantly in my second full day hike in the composite video below.

Also, this Park, like most in Africa, burns the vegetation frequently, and I have talked a lot about this in my blog to date. On my hikes, there were some great examples of before and after showing what burning does to the dry grasslands, does, so I thought I would show that here:

Note, in the photo above, clearly it has been some weeks since the area was burned, hence the abundant green shoots of grass coming up – despite the lack of precipitation. The contrast between before and weeks after burning is quite striking.

I did a short hike to a small waterfall and a viewpoint on the day I arrived, and then a long hike each of the next two full days. The first hike was from the bottom, hiking up Tugela canyon to a slot canyon close to the base of Tugela Falls, and looking up at the Amphitheater.

The next day I drove up high and hiked up to and around the base of Sentinel Peak to the top of Tugela Falls – albeit without water – and looking down from the top of the Amphitheater.

I took a lot of video footage of all three of my hikes, to create virtual hikes for those of you that like that, and I talked a lot about the geology of the area on one of the hikes, so I am not going to repeat it here. Sorry, you’ll just have to watch the video if you want a very simplified version of the geological processes that created this amazing landscape.

Here’s the link to my composite video from Royal Natal National Park. Note, this video is entirely a set of three virtual hikes, with regular footage and commentary along the trail. So, it’s very long, in part because of my geology overview on one of the hikes, but also because I compressed 15 hours of hiking into 45 minutes; also, it’s a great way to go on the hikes without actually doing the work – I know, I can hear some of you right now saying, but what’s the fun in that? However, most of you will never get here and do these hikes, so this is your only chance to hike here, even if it is only virtual. Lastly, I am dedicating this video to Yaroon, who commented that my Mount Mulanje trek video was his favorite of all time, so that has inspired me to do this virtual hike video:

Hiking Royal Natal National Park composite (45 minutes)

At Royal Natal National Park,I camped in the public campsite called Mahai. It was essentially a big field with scattered trees – nothing to rave about – but the view up at the escarpment was stunning and the ablutions were first rate. Here’s a photo of my site the first night, but I switch to one with a shade tree for the next two nights, but both had the same stunning backdrop:

After three days in Royal Natal NP, I headed to the southern section of the Drakensberg to the Cobham section of Maloti-Drakensberg Park. This area has the same basic geology as Royal Natal and the same cultural history, as it too is renowned for its preserved sites with San rock paintings. Apparently, there are over 500 recorded rock cave shelters used by the San 8,000 plus years ago with over 30,000 recorded individual pictographs or paintings. I took two full day hikes in this section, the first up to a high point called the Pinnacles and the second up a major canyon to a series of San rock cave shelters that are now used as destination wilderness campsites. The country was stunning and reminded my alot of places Nancy and I have hiked in the western U.S. Predominantly canyons, big and small, cut through the sedimentary formations with the slopes, ridges and valley bottoms covered with grasslands, except for the occasional patch of forest in a protected drainage or cove. Here’s a few photos from my hikes:

As with my visit to Royal Natal, this Park was about stretching my legs in some beautiful country, and thus my composite video below is another set of virtual hikes. So, again, if you enjoy going on virtual hikes, watch this video:

Hiking Maloti-Drakensberg Park composite (25 minutes)

My campsite at Cobham was quite nice, situated under some big cedar trees with a view of the surrounding canyon and nice ablutions. The picture shows lots of tents, but these were for a student group that was in the back country, so I had the campground to myself until the third night when another family showed up.

Ok, I’m off to Lesotho entering via the famed Sani Pass. See you there! But, may not have internet service for the next several days while in Lesotho, so don’t hold your breath for my next post.

New Species:

1. Olive thrush
2. Yellow-throated bush sparrow
3. Cape wagtail