17 December 2005    to      18 December 2005

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Friday the 16th December was a public holiday by us so we could leave nice and early to get to our hike. We had not done this hike before so we were keen to try it. Its situated about 20km outside Carolina in Mpumalanga. We were fortunate to have a beautiful little hut all to ourselves. Friday evening we just spent relaxing.

The trail is situated on a farm. Besides some huge Boerboels (a breed of large South African dogs) Here' s some of the other animals.

Next morning we were on the trail at 6:45 already, accompanied by a sheep dog. (just to make sure the sheep don't get lost!)

Meet Jessie!

The first half of the trail is fairly flat.

Eventually we got down to a small stream.

From here the trail follows the stream a bit. Here' s Silvia trying to get underneath one of the fallen trees along the way.

By this time of the day the temperatures had crossed the 30' s, and we were really feeling it!

Here' s some weaver birds that had just washed their nests and hung them out to dry.

Eventualy you come to a gravel road that one follows for a few hundred meters and cross over to the other side. At this point one comes across some Charcoal ovens. Here' s a large Eucalyptus tree that was planted in 1880.

The trail starts climbing a bit now and by the time we got to the top of the first hill we really needed a rest!

The trail is not particularly long, so we reached our overnight hut at midday already. The hut is really situated at a nice point overlooking the valley below and again we had it all to ourselves.

As usual we had brought along our meat for a braai that evening. However, the clouds were moving in and the wind was picking up, so we moved inside. That night we had a gale force wind the whole night with quite a bit of lightning.

Yep..Silvia does make a good pillow!

Everyone relaxing again..dog included.

Next morning everything was wet and we were down to a fine drizzle.

We decided to head back the way we came as the clouds were getting thick and heavy again and get back to our base camp. Next time if the weather is better we'll try the full second day which looks a lot more promising than the first one, but all in all we had a great time!