Drakensburg Mountians, Royal Natal

Another early morning, leaving at 6, to complete our last really long drive day.  At 8 am we pulled up to soem mountian in Lesotho, and were told it was a guided tour up the mountain due to soem history of a king of Lesotho.  I was FAST asleep when we stopped so was so not in teh mood to trek up this mountain but after the climb up to clear the cobwebs i was actually really pretty and very itneresting to hear about the King and the history of the monarchy of the country.

climbing down the dodgy cliff on the way back

We were then aiming to get to a town called Clarens just over the border for lunch time as Clive was leaving the tour here as it was prety close to where he lived.  The town was very pretty, pituresque with lots of little boutique shops and coffee shops.  It was sad to say goodbye to Clive, Angela was especially upset as they had been together for most of the tour (not my friend Angela, the other one!).  And then there were ten...

climbing the chain ladder up the cliff face

We arrived at Royal Natal in the evening and had to get back to tenting-it.  These two nights were to be our last nights of camping. 

The next day five of teh girls decided to go for a monster hike in teh Drakensburgs.  The walk was supposed to be 9 hours long so we were up at 7 ready to leave for 8.  We had to walk 5 kms to get to the start of the walk, thenthe walk itself was another 8kms each way.  It was really beautiful, most of it was on fairly decent path, until we reached the river gorge where we were crossign teh river a few times, adn had to climb up this chain ladder up a clif face and finally up this crevice in some rocks to get to the final point of the walk, called the amphi theatre.  It was a really fun climb, despite us knowing that if we fell we were dead!

hiking in the drakensburgs

The weaterh ws lovly until about 20 mins til we reched the end of the walk, when we heard the thunderstorm slowly approaching us.  We were practically sprinting back, as none of us had waterproofs and were all in shorts and vest tops.  We were hit unfortunately and managed to get pretty soaked, but the rain only lasted about 15 mins, so once we m,ade it back to the walk beginning we were drying off a bit.  By now we were all exhausted and had blisters on our feet, so we hitched a ride back to the campsite with a nice couple in their posh BMW.  We fit all 5 of us in teh back of this saloon car....it was hilarous, and the couple were so lvoely to do it.  Lucky we did as it stated properly throwing it down again shortyl after we got back to the visitors centre.  Obviously we had to reward our hard work with ice cream and chocolate, and once back at the campsite I had the nicest bath ever.  The first one since the trip, and it was luxury!

in the gorge

Then it was off to bed for our last night camping.  Hence the next morning we had to take a hundred pics of us in the tent, sweeping out the tent, taking down the tent, eating breakfast....you get the idea!

me ange and theo with the gorgeous view

the amphitheatre