The Drakensberg
Translation - Dragon Mountains
The Drakensberg is no-doubt South Africa’s grandest landscape. Its highest peak is only about 3500m high, but it is essentially a 200km long, 1000m high barrier – the result of a vast ancient lava flow atop the Molteno rock layer, which is now slowly crumbling away. The escarpment stretches from the little-known town of Dordrecht in the Eastern Cape to the border with Zimbabwe, almost 2000km away in the North. Very few people know that landscapes like Blyde River Canyon, Magoebaskloof and the mountains of Barkly-East are also part of the Drakensberg. The famous part is the 200km section stretching from Underberg to Witsieshoek, where the highest cliffs and grandest spires are.
Unless you can afford to charter a high-flying helicopter, the only way to get atop this incredible world is on foot. I've shared many amazing journeys along the escarpment with good friends, often covering more than 100km in a week, with a starting weight of over 30kg on my back. The best adventure I’ve had in life was an 8-night hike in 2016 with my friends Alex, Steve and our Zulu guide, Geoffrey.
If you're looking for a rejuvenating experience, forget spas, tropical islands and another bullshit diet or pill. Pack everything you need to survive for a week in a backpack and head into the mountains with good friends(and an experienced guide). You will experience the ultimate sense of achievement from something as simple as carrying your backpack over a 3300m neck atop the escarpment. You will experience the thrill of being stuck in a massive hailstorm and getting through it unscathed. You will appreciate every single mundane piece of food you have left after a week and you will swim in freezing mountain streams like a 6-year old. You will witness the inspirational beauty of seeing the sun rise over the clouds below and feel like you've walked to the edge of the earth. When you're back in civilization, you will long for nothing more than to be suffering up that 3300m hill again; clouds below, lammergeiers above and the cool Lesotho air in your lungs. The emotional satisfaction and contentment which we crave so much and that is so hard to achieve and experience in modern society, is available in abundance when it’s just you and nature. Nothing else cleanses your mind, body and soul like the natural world and this is one of the most amazing areas of it on our planet.
