The Drakensburgs

Well... that rain that we hadn't seen full days of since we came to Africa, finally showed up!  I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised as the Drakensburgs are mountains next to an Ocean (the Indian) and would be natural spots to create clouds that would drop excess moisture but it also went as far North as Kruger National Park which experienced the worst flooding in over a decade and actually shut down the south end of the park (which was where we were planning to go for our last few days in South Africa <sniff>).  This caused us to reevaluate our plans and we decided to spend more time at Wits End (this was becoming even more apropos!) and perhaps do an overnight safari at a private game reserve later in the week.  

We ended up staying for 6 days at Wits End and didn't let the rain slow us down too much as we were able to get out and do some fantastic hikes in the Drakensburgs on most days.  We (or more correctly, Jen) did take one day to get the kids refocused on school work when it was raining and cloudy all day.  This worked out well.  We hiked to a few different waterfalls well up in the mountains and did a lookout hike on another day as the pictures will show.  Wits End also had a great swimming pool (or 3 of them interlocking with waterfalls from one to the next) and a Braai which we used a few more times before finally giving up with the whole wait 3 hours for your dinner to cook on it gig.  I'll never swear at our gas barbecue again!

We also got to see much of the Drakensburgs and the local artisans and Jen bought some unique leather rugs for our hallway back home that we've shipped to Gina along with our sleeping bags now that we don't need those anymore.  Now for the pictures...

The Drakensbergs... and Shawn/Rachel leaving me for dust!

The Champagne Valley where we stayed

||||||Rachel (nee Steve Jr).

A waterfall after 2 hours of hard hiking

That water was FREEZING!!!  Rachel got into her suit before testing it... she didn't swim in it!

Another waterfall

Here's our guide...  we were looking for the right way to go as we entered the forest and it was raining buckets and this guy shows up, elbows us out of his way and heads up the path.  So we follow him and he takes us up the path at a nice slow pace to the man gate and then turns around and heads off.  The kids were really impressed.

Great name for our home in the Drakensbergs