Take a walk on “The Wild Side of the Drakensberg” — Wartrail Skywalk

Wartrail Skywalk

Since 1996 top ath­letes from South Africa and bey­ond have ven­tured to the little-known Eastern Cape Highlands to par­ti­cip­ate in what is prob­ably one of the toughest adven­ture races in the coun­try – The Salomon Skyrun. Starting in the pic­tur­esque town of Lady Grey, armed with their own sup­plies, a GPS and a map their aim is to run 100km across moun­tain peaks to fin­ish at Tiffindell Ski Resort. The top run­ners fin­ish in approx­im­ately 14 hours, ori­enteer­ing them­selves across the dra­matic route through day and night.

The guest house own­ers of the Wartrail and New England val­leys real­ised that it would be a trav­esty for this excep­tional route to be the sole pre­serve of extreme ath­letes. Thus, the little sis­ter to the Skyrun, the Wartrail Skywalk was devised to give us ordin­ary mor­tals the oppor­tun­ity to exper­i­ence the high moun­tain wil­der­ness at a more leis­urely pace. The Wartrail Skywalk is a fully guided slack­pack­ing trail, cov­er­ing approx­im­ately 60kms over 4 days. I was assured that all lug­gage would be trans­por­ted between overnight stops, so that I would only have to carry my day­bag. For me, a multi-day, sup­por­ted hike soun­ded much more civ­il­ised and achiev­able than a single day’s run!

As we trav­elled along the R58 from Aliwal North towards Barkly East the road twis­ted through craggy sand­stone out­crops and across intriguing river gorges. We left the tar road just before Barkly East and with it also aban­doned all traffic, noise and signs of civil­isa­tion for the next week. At the Kraai River cross­ing we stopped to pho­to­graph Loch Bridge, built in 1893 and a little fur­ther on we had a fas­cin­at­ing view of the Barkly East rail­way reverses, one of only two such engin­eer­ing sys­tems in the world. We turned into an impossibly pretty val­ley with tower­ing moun­tains on either side to arrive at the cosy Millard Mountain Lodge.

We were warmly wel­comed by Kate and Phil from Wild Mountain Adventures (and Rosstrevor Guest Fam) who settled us down with a drink on the sun-drenched ver­anda and told us a little about what was in store for us over the next 4 days. Each day we would be walk­ing approx­im­ately 15kms from farm to farm. Yes, there would be some steep climbs and des­cents but we would be able to take our time and go at the pace that suited the group. Phil and Kate asked about our pre­vi­ous exper­i­ence and cur­rent fit­ness levels and explained that there are dif­fer­ent route options avail­able ran­ging from the stiff ‘up and over’ to the longer but easier con­tour route around the peaks. This helped to ease the nervous ten­sion that had developed within our group dur­ing the jour­ney. Dinner was a deli­cious show­case of local pro­duce; juicy steaks, fol­lowed by fresh rasp­ber­ries picked straight from Millard’s bushes that after­noon. Members of the group who were hop­ing to lose a kilo or two on this hik­ing trip were begin­ning to real­ise that weight-loss was not part of the itinerary!

The next morn­ing we rose to nat­ural music with won­der­ful sop­ranos per­formed by the Cape Robins, the deep soul­ful bas­soon of the Sussex bulls and the sweet gurg­ling melody of the moun­tain river. God’s own orches­tra! After a tasty farm­house break­fast we set off with our guide for the day, Phil from Wild Mountain Adventures. To be accur­ate, Phil was the one provid­ing inter­est­ing inform­a­tion about the area. However, ‘Number One Guide’ and pathfinder was actu­ally Tinker the collie-cross who tackles her job of herd­ing people with enorm­ous enthu­si­asm. We took the ini­tial climb slowly, allow­ing for the fact that that the air 2kms above sea level is thin. But it wasn’t the alti­tude that made me gasp; it was the views which were truly breath­tak­ing. We enjoyed a packed lunch on top of the world, before mak­ing our way down to our new home for the night, Pitlochrie Cottage.

Joe Sephton gave us a warm wel­come and as we had pre-dinner drinks he regaled us with tales of the 1950s when his father Paul was one the first people to snow ski in the Eastern Cape. They made their first pil­grim­age to the slopes of Ben McDhui on horse­back and lodged in the stock-theft police sta­tion a few kilo­metres from the moun­tain. Now of course ‘BenMac’ as it is affec­tion­ally known loc­ally is home to Tiffindell Ski Resort. The theme of loc­ally pro­duced food con­tin­ued as Joe rustled up a deli­cious roast chicken and we settled on the stoop to admire the crys­tal clear stars before a well-earned sleep.

After break­fast we set on our way and Joe proved he is an awe­some moun­tain guide as well as a gen­ial host and an excel­lent cook. He was born and bred on Pitlochrie Farm and is a 3^rd gen­er­a­tion des­cend­ant of the ori­ginal 1860 set­tlers of the area. Speaking with pas­sion about his farm­ing oper­a­tion at Pitlochrie, Joe is clearly a true cus­todian of this nat­ural wil­der­ness, stop­ping fre­quently to point out a del­ic­ate flower or a soar­ing bird of prey. Once again, a steep climb star­ted the day, but the views at the top of Skidaw were ample reward for aching legs. He poin­ted out our next des­tin­a­tion, Balloch, from the top of the moun­tain and we wound our way down through the tree-lined val­ley, rein­vig­or­at­ing our tired muscles with a refresh­ing river swim en-route.

This was mid-March; the trees in the Balloch val­ley were gil­ded with the first signs of autumn col­our and the late after­noon light dappled the river in front of the guest cot­tages. We were intro­duced to Margy who would be hostess­ing and guid­ing the next leg of the hike and settled into the clean and well-appointed chalets. We were fast begin­ning to real­ise that the res­id­ents in the Wartrail area are a multi-talented bunch of entre­pren­eurs. Over the years Margy has built her own fur­niture, run a dress-making busi­ness, a trout-farming enter­prise, raised a fam­ily and now oper­ates a suc­cess­ful tour­ism busi­ness at Balloch. In her spare time (yes, she claims to have some!) she runs and moun­tain bikes reg­u­larly, tak­ing part in mara­thon races. To cap it all, she can also cook up a storm and we eagerly devoured her tasty lasagne before retir­ing for the night.

We woke with some nervous­ness as we had been warned that Day 3 was the shortest, but toughest part of the route. We were head­ing up and over the Balloch Wall, and nervous dis­cus­sions ensued as to whether the name came from the degree of angle or the men­tal chal­lenge that it involved. For the first hour Margy found some won­der­ful ways to dis­tract us from our fears by show­ing us some of Balloch’s incred­ible secrets. Rock form­a­tions that defied grav­ity, fas­cin­at­ing rock art sites that included a well-preserved big cat, huge sand­stone caves and even the ori­ginal ox-wagon that early set­tlers used in years gone by. We could have stayed on the farm itself all day, but we couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to face The Wall!

To be fair, we had been offered an easier con­tour route around Balloch Mountain, but des­pite the pre­vi­ous days’ hik­ing we were feel­ing well-rested and strong, so we decided to give The Wall a go. It is indeed a steep ascent, although not rock-climbing as the name might sug­gest. I con­fess I stopped for lots of extra pho­tos and spot­ted a num­ber of ima­gin­ary birds just to slow the pace. Margy was incred­ibly patient though and we never felt hur­ried as step by step we got nearer to the sun. A beau­ti­ful moun­tain reed­buck bounced ahead of us to the sum­mit, mak­ing the climb look impossibly easy. We reached the top with brim­ming smiles and a tre­mend­ous sense of achieve­ment that I won’t for­get for a long time. We were lucky enough go get a thrill­ing eye to eye view with a Black Eagle as it soared the moun­tain. During our pic­nic lunch the wind picked up and I saw Margy’s own eagle eye keep­ing a very close watch on the thun­der­clouds that had star­ted to gather. We made it to Reedsdell Farm as the sky grew omin­ously dark.

Within an hour we were treated to a dra­matic Wild Mountain storm of ‘hail and brim­stone’ pro­por­tions which included a spec­tac­u­lar nat­ural light show. We remembered Kate’s words at the start of the week that the only thing pre­dict­able about moun­tain weather is… that it’s unpre­dict­able. Late after­noon thun­der­storms do occur reg­u­larly in this highveld region, hence the guides were always care­ful to ensure that we arrived at our accom­mod­a­tion by 3pm. By early even­ing the storm cleared to pro­duce a stun­ning double rain­bow and then a balmy autumn even­ing. We eagerly tucked into roast Barkly lamb and retired to Reedsdell’s charm­ing sand­stone cottage.

The next morn­ing we had a bet­ter oppor­tun­ity to explore Reedsdell and to learn more about our hosts Chris and Kath Isted. Again, we were charmed by this enter­pris­ing couple who have cre­ated many strings to their bows. Chris com­bines tra­di­tional sheep and cattle farm­ing, whilst look­ing for oppor­tun­it­ies to diver­sify. Emu pro­duc­tion cer­tainly wasn’t one of the indus­tries that we had expec­ted to find in the Eastern Cape Drakensberg and Chris’ pre­his­toric look­ing birds were hugely intriguing.

Kath clearly enjoys rais­ing her delight­ful chil­dren in Reesdell’s moun­tain para­dise and com­bines this with her tour­ism busi­nesses. As well as the guest farm oper­a­tion she has launched a tea garden and Woolly’s of Wartrail craft shop at Reedsdell. As the name sug­gests, the shop spe­cial­ises in wool­len products and with the aid of a small grant she was instru­mental in found­ing the Masibambane knit­ting group. This lovely com­munity pro­ject has given local women the skills and resources to cre­ate their own products and thus earn an income whilst based on remote moun­tain farms. The qual­ity of the bean­ies and scarves for sale in the shop was very high and I am told that they are pop­u­lar with the Tiffindell ski crowd who des­cend to the area each June and July.

Chris and Kath employ a local guide, Tskholo, and he proved to be an abso­lute wealth of know­ledge about the tra­di­tional cul­tures and plant spe­cies. As we star­ted the final leg of the hike along a gurg­ling moun­tain stream he drew our atten­tion to wild flowers and indi­gen­ous bushes, explain­ing their medi­cinal uses. The views along the Edgehill val­ley under the stony-faced shadow of Halstone Krans were mag­ni­fi­cent and once again we were reminded why this is known as Wild Mountain Country. We had by now hiked for almost four days and not seen a single soul, bar the occa­sional farm hand. We cel­eb­rated the last climb of the week with a wee dram of whisky, mixed with the pure spring water we had gathered from a nat­ural foun­tain before mak­ing our way down to Bidstone farm at the base of the Tiffindell pass. We remarked again on the fact that each farm has its own unique char­ac­ter and Bidstone’s tree-lined garden over­look­ing the river was a delight. As ever we were greeted warmly, this time by Janet and Andy Viedge. A hearty beef strogan­off that even­ing was accom­pan­ied by a few bottles of red wine and won­der­ful memor­ies of the spe­cial week that we had enjoyed.

It is hard to pick a high­light from this stun­ning walk on “The Wild Side of the Drakensberg”. The food was excel­lent, the accom­mod­a­tion of a high qual­ity and of course the scenic hik­ing was lit­er­ally breath­tak­ing. However, if I have to single one aspect out it was the amaz­ing hos­pit­al­ity of the fas­cin­at­ing people that we met along the way and the gen­er­os­ity with which they shared their know­ledge, their farms and their incred­ible energy with us. What a priv­ilege to be wel­comed into this warm-hearted com­munity, if only for a week.

Photo Credits:
With sin­cere thanks to Perri Crossley, Greg Stokes, Carol & David Powter!

Contact:
Kate & Chris at Wild Mountain Adventures on +27 (0)45 971‑9064.