5 February 2005    to      6 February 2005

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Queen Rose is a very nice hike about 40km from Barberton. The basecamp is situated in a forestry environmental center and basically is a forestry house turned basecamp. This photo was taken late Friday afternoon from the basecamp.

For once they provided enough chairs, but not enough tables. The group was 24 strong which was a real "Rent a Crowd"! In quite a few's opinion including ours, too many!

The first part of the trail leads through pine and some Blue gum plantations. A heavy mist had settled in and a very fine rain started to come down in waves. Me..walking in front ended up walking into all the spider webs and soon I was covered in webs and occasionally some spiders as well, earning me the name of Spiderman. This time I would have preferred not to have the honor!

Eventually you leave the forest and the grassland and indigenous forest start.

But first there is a long decent.

At the bottom is a small river and waterfall with very nice pool. Some tried the cold water.

The trail then winds its way along the river which you criss cross many times. Its along here that Silvia ended up in the drink after slipping on one of the wet rocks.

Some grassland in-between.

Karen, Lorette and Ferdi

Tim in one of his more favorite positions....zzzzzzzzzz

A little break.

The Saturday overnight hut is quite comfortable and situated in a small forestry village. A lot of us decided to take the bunk mattresses and sleep outside as it was quite warm.

The rest of the group.

Next morning after breakfast we were off again. The weather was a lot better than the previous day. You had to cross a few small patches of grassland.

before again getting to a small stream.

Some rickety bridges.

A very primitive but functional suspension bridge. At this point some of us decided to try out the "Foefie" slide at a big pool close by. For the none South Africans, a "foefie" slide is a long steel cable suspended across a river, pool or dam with one side higher than the other. You then have a pipe our roller that runs on the cable that you hold onto and ride this thing (almost like a cable car) from the upper part into the water. Some are quite long and this one was no exception (unfortunatly no photo available) Most of us tried the thing, which was a lot of fun even if the water was rather cold!

Another long waterfall before eventually going through some thick indigiones forest with the last bit again being pine plantations and then back to the basecamp.