Day tripping to the Chain Ladders

My love for the Drakensberg mountains deepens each time I have the privileged to visit. It doesn’t matter which part of the Berg I see, it does my soul a world of good, just to be in those mountains. It’s one of the few places that quietens my ever noisy mind.

So, when my boss suggested a day trip to the Sentinel earlier this year, I needed no convincing.

We set off from Pretoria dark and early one January morning, and arrived at the Sentinel car park just after 10 am. The last few kilometers of the roads are rough, and need to be navigated with care.

But the surrounding scenery is well worth the slow passage, and offers a taste of what’s to come.

Your first real glimpse of what’s to come

Quiet scenes from the Drakensberg. Wild flowers, blue skies, it doesn’t get much better than this.

After the usual hike registration with the guard on duty and paying of hiking fees, we hefted our camera gear and started out on the main route. (we didn’t stay on this route long, but don’t tell anyone)

The Sentinel standing tall and proud.

With ample rain fall during December, the slopes were bejeweled with flowers. A fairy-tale micro scene amid the swaying grass. Every shape, size and colour you could dare to dream of, could be found if you cared to look.

Our trip was largely unplanned, we had no time frame and no specific destination in mind, which was great. We hiked, stopped to catch our breath, chatted, took photos, hiked a bit more, all the while taking in this amazing scenery……

Hikers in the distance

The Chain Ladder Route

The stunning Amphitheatre

The first hour or so of the climb is hard work, the trail ascends most of the way, and the air is thin (you’re about 3165 m above sea level) But after that things smooth out nicely, and the rest of the trail is a winding ramble. The Chain Ladder trail is definitely one of the most breathtakingly picturesque of all the Berg day trails I’ve done.

Everlastings, like memories

After about a 3 hour “hike” (interspersed with a lot of photography) we found ourselves at the Chain Ladders.

We deemed this out turn around point for this trip, as it was getting late and we still had a long way to get back. Luckily, as is always the case, our hike down was much quicker than our hike up, and we reached the car park at around 4 pm.

This was one of those trips that will definitely be repeated, with more time at hand and a little more planning involved. Witsieshoek Mountain Lodge is about 8 km away from the Sentinel car park, I think a stop over there, for a night or two is in order for my next trip.

We saw a bunch of reptiles (which was an added bonus) but most importantly the trip served to blow all the cobwebs clean for the past year, and start 2017 off fresh – it certainly achieved this. Bit scary to think 2017 is drawing to an end already. Time flies when you’re having fun.

The coolest find of our trip was this Many Spotted Reed Snake (Amplorhinus multimaculatus)