due to car troubles we only left yesterday afternoon, and not early morning as we hoped to. arrived at base camp in golden gate national park early evening. had a good nights rest, and departed around 6:10am with backpacks packed, heavy to accomodate all photographic equipment.
arrived at the the sentinal carpark around 7:00am where we had a quick mountain mix breakfast, filled in the mountain register and started the misty hike into the northen 'berg zig zagging up sentinal peak.
the mist got worse the higher we climbed and at about 3000m ASL we were completely fogged in. unable to get much information from the contour lines we tried to keep constant track of our position on the map. we reached the turn-off point where we were to turn left, up into a gully in order to avoid the chain ladder, which i was not very keen on with my still broken arm. with the thick mist, we did not feel convinced about the gully, and opted to continue on for a little while longer.
after gettting gps reception to confirm our position, we realised that we indeed were just below the chain ladders. i tried the first few steps, and found a way to ascend the 100-rung ladders to the top of the escarpment, broken arm on the right, heavy pack on the back, slippery cold ladder in front, rain from above and the faint silohette of the keen hiking partner below in the mist.
we reached the top around what we estimated to be 11:00am. very cold, very wet. got rid of wet clothes, added a layer or so, and continued the hike following the streams right to the thukela falls. the 950m fall did not seem all that impressive in the mist, just a river tumbling into the mist.
during a quick cloud break we noticed the old hikers hut, and curiosity drew us there where we had a nice warm cup of tea, sheltering from the wind behind the hut. one could see that the hut was not in the shape it used to be. vandalised by basotho smugglers, it even had a strange stench.
taking some interest in the map, we opted to head for crows nest cave, where we could spend the night. mist was strong again, and we had to leap from in 30m steps to be able to stick to our bearing. reaching the cave we could make out that someone had beaten us to it. heading back to the escarpment, the mist started clearing, and we could enjoy a second sighting of the huge sheep herd that seemed to not belong to anyone.
we were contemplating crossing the border into lesotho, but decided to leave that for tomorrow, instead, just find a nice site to pitch the tent for the night. a smallish buttress protruding from the escarpment seemed perfect. it had a 1000m drop off in about 340 of the 360 degrees, and a perfect view of both the thukela falls, and the devils tooth and tooth pick. perfect.
tent pitched, we took a few extra pics, and entered the well deserved, and long awaited rest.
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got up early this morning to shoot some steam locomotive at capital park station. weather was clear, all the way to about 300m from the station, where it was fogged in. started talking to the very approachable guys and ended up following them all the way to rayton, to cullinan, back to rayton, back to capitol park. 12 hours of hurrying up and wait took us (me and driver graham) from lookout to lookout spot all around the area. very exciting, with some good pics. [more photos...]
