As promised the South Cape weather delivered another cracking Winters Day of sunshine and warmth allowing our members to escape into the mountains and explore.
Today 6 of us gathered at the usual Waboomskraal parking spot at 0830 and without much delay we were heading up the track to the Cape Nature Doring River Valley Reserve.
L-R: Ed Kay-Shuttleworth (Leader) Pierre and Som Kruse. Mimi Kay-Shuttleworth, Greg and Cheryl Devine
Today was about exploration and enjoying ourselves so at a certain point after some deliberation we decided to turn around rather than push ourselves to the limits. However, we did venture off the normal circular route and made some headway along the ridge to the North West of the normal route.
We reached the highest point of the circuit which for lack of any name I will refer to as the Doring River Valley Peak after about 2 hours 30 mins. We then descended by about 100 metres in elevation from here on the normal track that is followed down onto the saddle. At this point that one then normally veers off to the South (i.e., left over the crest) we continued straight along the ridge. The going got immeasurably tougher as we were now off the luxury of the path that had been followed until this point.
Our ridge route is shown in the picture below.
After about a kilometre of navigating the ridge line (yellow line in map below) we decided to head back the way we had come and stopped at an enormous rock overhang beneath which we enjoyed our picnic lunch.
Navigating the rocks
Picnic at Hanging Rock!
On the way back we were saddened to note the intrusion of some invasive alien Hakea bushes into this pristine wilderness area. We can only hope that this report comes to the attention of those who might be prepared to intercept this invasion before it takes hold!
Alien intruders!
Heading home with view across the valley to Campherskloofberg
That’s all Folks – until next time!
Meet Leader ~ Ed Kay-Shuttleworth