Drakensburgh is the stuff dreams are made of! 11.11.07 (Soph) November 11, 2007

Hello all you lovely people ,we are in Pietermaritzburg (yes i did have to ask Chris how to spell it) Great place.we have found a internet cafe where we can do our laundry and have a smoothie(98% fat free.)It’s brilliant ,so we are spending our Sunday lunch catching up with things in style.

We have just returned from 2 days in Drakensburg hills.This is probably the best few days for me as the countryside has been so beautiful and we have been treated to views that we normally only ever see on big blockbuster films.Glorious!

After our last blog we spent the night in a backpackers in Pietermaritzburgh.Quite a strange one as we camped in the owners back garden next to the compost and chickens(you have to take the rough with the smooth.)

They lived in a massive victorian style house that was full of art and ethnic throws.Quite hippyish and we felt a little strange being in their home.We were woken at 5.30,unbelievably it was not by the smell,but the sound of  birds squawking.The birds here are really abundant and noisy. some of them are beautiful but some make a noise like an electric alarm clock.We don’t know what they are called but when we are talking about them at 5 in the morning in our tent,we give them our own special names.

Any way after an abrupt awakening and waking to find i could not turn my head to the right,my first camping injury, we set off for the hills,occasionally singing “run to the hills”Iron Maiden stylie.

Arrived at a stunning lodge named Inkosana lodge at the base of Champagne Mountain.we were sent up to the back to camp and put our little tent in one of the most beautiful settings i have seen so far.360 degree view of lush green mountains with rivers breaking up the space.No other houses,huts or people outside the camp.Amazing and massively vast and humbling.

We decided on a short yomp,i thought 2km due to severe neck injury,chris thought 5 km.We ended up setting off at midday,no mad dogs,just us in the midday sun.We walked in flip flops and when we had to fill in the form to enter the treking area we ticked the boxes saying we had mobiles,first aid kit,warm weather wear,2 bottles of water and topped in off by giving a fake telephone number to contact if needed.All lies and very irresponsible,sorry mum!

The walk was great and we walked to fresh water pools and a waterfall. Unfortunately, after over 2km in burning sun my hormonal temper spoilt the middle of the walk and i stomped as best i could wearing thin flip flops and my top on my head in a turban fashion.Poor lovely Chris avoiding my eye contact as  he had sneakily moved us up to the 5km walk.However it was worth it ,the views were incredible and the greenery such a change from our previous desert trip. We looked out for baboons as recommended but did not see any,on our return we found out they were all in the cafe having a banana split(Wey hey!) 

Back to the camp for a Braai with other walkers.We met 2 german men with strong jaws both fluent in english and french skills, who had walked for 8 hours literally up a cliff that day as well as spending the last 5 months in Madagascar completing stats at nature parks for their masters.Chris and i left the young talented,hansome ,kind men agreeing that the  only reason they had accomplished so much at such a young age was because they were clearly telling porkies and that we were in fact as brilliant as them.

We met up with a lovely brother and sister for Chicago(great accents)over dinner and cackled over her story of being arrested in Belgium in the 70’s over a coffee spoon stealing accusation.Great fun!

After a bit of star gazing at a huge clear twinkling sky we slept like logs.We woke to hot tent tourture at 6, if the birds won’t get you then the sun will!

Off to discover the hills Spioenkop where the battles with Boers and English led to over 300 men being buried in 1900.Again amazing views in all direction and left very much like a cemetry,very nicely done,no theme rides of fancy dress!Special interest to the Liverpool footie supporters my husband informed me ,so boysie and Dave Beavis,this trip was for you.If anyone ever comes here bring a full body mesh suit because the flies are unbearable.

Short drive to Ladysmith where the well researched travellers that we are, discovered the museum was indeed shut on Saturday afternoons and we had just been half an hour too late.Chris then blamed this on the kind man at the lodge for talking to us for long, apologies Ed,that means you!

This in a way was a blessing(for me,) as we headed for a lovely lodge to settle early.I could tell instantly from the managers look of disgust when i asked if we could camp,that this was indeed a little up market.After a short powwow and some self congratulation on coming under budget 3 days running(Hurray!) we decided to treat our selves to a double room with ensuite.1 hour of cooing over the T.V ,towels,massive shower,a.c and kettle later and we had a swim in the most unbelievable swimming pool,set on a hill.The edge of the pool overlooked a massive green valley with a clear blue ripple free lake ,blue skies and birdsong.It reminded me of a gangsta video(not the bird song so much) when they do the dancing in the pool business.As un gangsta as we are, we spent about 30 minutes trying to put the camera on timer and get a photo of us with the view behind us.This mostly involved photos of one of us surfacing too late,not in the shot at all or posing with no photo being taken.

I guess it is one of those places where you have to be there to take it all in and we bobbed about soaking up all the beauty and agreeing we were very lucky people and wishing you lot could be with us to see it all too.

Not much has happened since that,lots of lovely food,big sleep in proper bed and a painful bill paid.Its now sunday and we are hoping to have another luxury night and maybe a rhinno and hippo sigting to tell you about.Thats if the visa card still comes good,we may be asking friends to sell our furniture for us soon.

With any luck we will get our visas for India tomorrow from Durban!

Love to you all and especially to lamb,thorpskie and karkett who have all been in touch.I love hearing from!

Mr Warn is blogging next and judging from stats(yes we are monitoring you)he gets more comments.So far we have had 1828 hits on our blogg!We are still working on the photos as its quite tricky to get them down loaded and it makes my husband swear alot,even on the sabbath! 

Quick hello to Pat and Roger too as i know they would love the birds here.The birds sing like crazy  and are stunning.We saw some that looked like goldfish and have seen,falcons,yellow birds.And when they are not singing the frogs and crickets take over.Its so loud some evenings you feel like you are shouting above it.The Garden Route was brill for bird watching too!

Well thats all folks!Thanks for looking at the Blogg we love doing it and  get ridiculously excited when we get comments.Let us know of anything we could change!

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE