25 September 2004     to       26 September 2004

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The Waterkloof trail is situated between Fouriesberg and Ficksberg somewhat to the west. It is possible to do a two or three day trail here starting from the same basecamp. After leaving the tar road its another 20km of gravel road through some really stunning country! On the way there it had started raining.

The base camp is an old farmhouse built of the typical sandstone that you get in that area.

After dinner it was time to relax with some wine and beer.

During the night it had continuad to rain but by morning had stopped, although the weather was very overcast.

The trail starts off fairly flat through mostly grassland before heading in the direction of the mountains.

Some nice redish grass.

As the trail starts to climb you come across more and more waterfalls.

At this point it had started raining intermittently again and the Ponchos came out. The trail winds it way in and out of gorges and along some smaller rock overhangs.

We got to our "Cave / Rockoverhang" fairly early. Little mud rooms had been built along the one side for shelter. This was unusual as normally one sleeps outside anywere along the floor. We found out a bit later why!

As we were the first to arrive again (living up to the name of Roadrunner and Cayote) a fire was started.

In the distance, dark clouds were approaching and a few hours later the wind had turned into a Gale blowing up all the fine dust off the floor. Everything was covered in dust including ourselves.

Originaly we had put up our sleeping bags outside but now quickly moved everything into the little rooms. At this stage it started raining again quite hard outside and the water was running all the way down the rocks from outside and down the slopping roof of our room. This necessitated another move to escape the dripping water! A cold weather front was moving in and the temperatures plummeted.

Next morning the wind had died down and everything was misty but the sun quickly started burning away the fog.

Some wild flowers had started coming out and the scenery was looking great.

Unfortuanatly the rocks were very slippery now, and Silvia and myself ended up on the ground a couple of times. We heard later on that in the other groups some people had broken their arms and ankles, so besides some minor bruises we got of lightly.

The turnoff point for the three day trail.

Along the way down an Ostrich started following us and we were not quite sure its intentions. It got to within about ten meters. Ostriches have enormous claws not to mention the fact that they can outrun any human easily. Anyway after we stopped and spent awhile looking at him he eventually lost interest in us and turned back.

Herds of Wildebees.

On the way out from Waterkloof we could see some snow had fallen during the night on some of the higher laying mountain peaks towards Lesotho.