Beginners hike: Marble baths, Injisuthi

The plan was to go to Marble baths cave in the Injisuthi area, Drakensberg. We (Kemba, Will, Hoosain, Willem and I) would leave early, sail through the traffic (no traffic on a friday afternoon, never!), get there, set up camp for the night and turn in early... Lets just say that didn't exactly happen...

What I thought would be a relatively simple drive, but possibly a bit of a challenging hike turned out to be exactly the opposite: the 30 - odd Km road to the Injisuthi campsite turned out to be one big car-swallowing pothole for the rather low Camry we were in, and therefore it took us a long time to get through. We got to the entrance to the reserve at about 11pm, and, (not surprisingly) the gate was locked. So I ran all the way up some tiny hill in the hope of getting some signal, found signal and proceeded to wake up the Injisuthi reception person so they could radio the guard to come and let us in. However, when I came back from my mission, the guard had already opened for us... Good way of making new friends at the camp...

So we got there in the end. However, the rest of the weekend went by so effortlessly, that getting there almost seemed to be the most challenging part of the weekend. The route was easy to follow, and not very difficult. The weather turned out to be sunny and a little hot, but no rain. There was one part where I thought we were lost, though. There was this thick mass of vegetation on the path, and millions of baboon paths going off in all directions. Well, I took one of those paths, thinking it was the right path... Turned out it wasn't, but we found our way back to the main path eventually. We found the cave easily, and then all headed down to the baths after lunch, where the boys had lots of fun swimming in the pools. I was looking for lizards, and therefore didn't swim... I consumed a fair amount of OBS during supper, (no-one else was, so I had to make up for them...), and consequently was very happy when I got to bed.

On the walk back, a rather large puffadder decided Kemba was a threat, and so struck at her. She wasnt bitten luckily, and the snake, which must have been quite scared moved off quickly. The incident left a few shaken people, me included, as a snake bite, especially from a puffadder would not have been good times.

Anyway, we got back safely. The 'Berg was absolutely beautiful, the water tasted lovely, and all in all, it was a really good weekend.

Cheese