firstly thanks rory raffa and jasper, the other of you can go to hell. you know who you are.
so. hiking in the rain was always going to be a $%^$$% bad idea, so why did we do it.
from my side....im the forever optimist when it comes to the weather, i will go hiking in a dress and a thin synthetic top even though there is a mother of storm on the way and it has already hit cape town.
(also, i did not have the rain graph that gregory nicholson carried around showing this area's most rainy month to be april.)
(also, i did not have the rain graph that gregory nicholson carried around showing this area's most rainy month to be april.)
" no, its fine, the weather will hold!!" famous last words.
2 hours into our hike in the lovely Grootvadersbosch , which i can only assume was beautiful because we kind of missed out on all the views because we were consistently walking in a raincloud!!!, it came pouring down....it didn't take long for the temperature to drop to below zero (snow on the mountains kind of weather......ok, maybe not below zero, but pretty close) and for me to get totally soaked. thank god for my bag cover and my rain poncho, otherwise all the stuff in my bag would've gotten totally soaked as well. please note the bloody bag weighed about 15kg.
guys, it was harsh. there were some desperate moments where i didn't know if i was going to live or die in the mountains. it was a totally sad scene.
i often told myself : "people die like this all the time!"
when we arrived at our hut for the night to find the rest of our very athletic totally annoying group that made it there pretty easily, all there was to do was strip down, try get some dry things on and climb into our sleeping bags to stop the hypothermia that already set in.
thanks to jasper for a lovely cup of hot tea and providing the entertainment later in the night, in the form of a card game called something like "fok jou maatjie"???
it was just a different version of Uno really.
we were suppose to hike for 3 days, the second night we were going to camp(yeah right). that idea quickly got scrapped and we decided to hike back the next day.
the athletic group decided on an alternative route back while us (raffie rory and me) decided to go back the way we came.
because we couldn't see anything on the first day anyway, the way back looked completely different and we could glimpse every now and again the beautiful views.
it was still hard going on the second day with the occasional hailstorm and what not, raf and i did get lost there towards the end for another like 2 hours until we got rescued again by the fantastic specimen of a human being, jasper slingsby.
(the rescue ended in tears and i'm a little bit embarrass to admit they were my tears on jasper's shoulder)
at least back at the main camp there were hot showers and coffee waiting, thank you rosy for the coffee.
guys, never again will i go hiking in the rain. lesson learned, thank you very much.
yes people she carried that coffeemaker all the way to the top...
as you can see our lodgings were pretty much a cement block with a roof. naaaice....
brekkie time
outside.
wet shoes. wet socks
keeping warm
