Our trip to South Africa

Unfortunately our trip to South Africa this November was dogged by bad weather. At the beginning of the month we flew in to Cape Town and had 3 days climbing there. Whilst there we climbed on Table Mountain (in the cloud), then had a an afternoon on Lions Head Granite before a final day at The Mine clipping bolts. Here we had good weather and had an excellent day cragging.

From Cape Town we headed north to Cedarberg. Though the weather was good for travelling, as soon as we got our tents set up the weather deteriorated. By morning the it was raining and so it continued for 36 hours. At the end of that time the weather forecast was tipping the rain to continue for the next 5 days. We departed for Monyagu.

At Montagu we stayed at the De Bos Farm where we were made more than welcome by Stu and Regula. They recommended the best crags to visit and we had a great stay there for the next 6 days. At Montagu we were blessed with good weather and we had great days on Bosch Crag, Skull Crag and The Palace in Bad Kloof. Though we didn’t manage to climb with him, he was doing his Saturday morning shopping, we met up with Ed February which was a great honour for us all.

From there we headed out to Harrismith and Mount Everest. Days of driving through perfect weather saw us approaching the distant clouds. By the time we were at Mount Everest it was drizzling and bitterly cold. The next two days we were able to walk but too wet to climb so we headed North to Waterfall Boven.

At WB we booked into chalet accommodation with Gustav and Alex then drove up to Tranquillitas. We managed one damp climb that day before the heavens opened up once again and we had a further 24 hours of non stop rain. This time we felt completely trapped as the dirt road was now impassible and we were stuck in the chalet. Luckily on the next day the weather improved and we had 5 days climbing. The wet weather meant that ,many of the routes were wet, even on Rainy Day crag. However we did do some great routes on Rainy day and God No! wall.

Then, with the great help of Alex, we organised a trip to the Kruger Nat’l Park where we spent 2 nights. The visit to the Park was better than we ever dared imagine with close up sightings of Lions, Cheetahs, Elephants, Rhinos etc etc. A wonderful experience not to be missed where you can view the animals from your own car and in near solitude. Fantastic!

We then went back to Tranquillitas for a final 3 days climbing and meeting up with many South African Climbers as it was the week end.

All in all we had a great trip to South Africa, the rock climbing was excellent as were all the people we met. My only disappointment was the bad weather and the fact that we couldn’t climb or walk in Cedarberg.