This meet was tagged onto the western Baviaanskloof trip, near to the NuweKloof Pass, as we were in the area. Five of us set off over a ridge to enter a high tributary valley of the Kouga River. We were very pleased to find good water; there was little rain over the past few years. We settled into a wonderful comfy cave that was our home for the next three nights.
On the second day Clive and Werner did a peak-bag. We think it is Kougabronnen, 1714 m high; it is not labelled correctly on the 1:50 000 map. We had lovely views over the Tsitsikamma mountains to the south, Kouga to the east, Kammanassie and Swartberg to the west and Baviaanskloof to the north. The rest of the party went exploring down the valley.
On the third morning we explored some caves, and found two with paintings. One we named Arbiter Cave, which means shelter in French, because it’s not a good or proper cave, more of an emergency shelter. The other is Musician’s Cave, because the painting seems to include a person shaking rattles. In the afternoon some drizzle set in; we were rewarded with lovely misty views of cedars on cliffs, like a Chinese painting.
There are abundant cedar trees, with numerous seedlings coming up, showing good recovery after the fire of 4 years ago. We walked out via a different valley, and found some excellent crags for our rock-climbers to explore.
Werner & Zeta, Gillian Forbes, Clive Louw, Dennis Lange.
Meet Leaders ~ Werner Illenberger & Zeta Michau