Back In The Office

After our Giants extravagance life back at base felt rather slow, staying in one place all day with just my washing to keep me occupied and then back into that office for the day. Something had to be done, so it was decided to go off to the local pub (40kms away) and take advantage of the beer and burger night for a celebratory evening out. Most enjoyable. Then the following morning I was off hours riding, western style for those of you that were interested. Now I’m not the most experienced horse rider in the world in fact you could say I’m rather in experience so riding horses that are very really ridden wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do. However I did have an expert rider accompanying me but this wonderful rider though not to instruct us on how to ride but rather demonstrate how fast a horse can go when you start in galloping home. Well needles to say this didn’t end too well, from watching the Grand National and so forth on TV I knew the rough position to obtain when a horse is going bloody fast but my friend on the other horse was no so clued up. Oh and the master rider managed to stop the hours end walk it home. So our horse were racing back and I was loving it but my friend however had her bum glued to the seat rains at full length and has leaning back shacking like a possessed woman trying to get it to stop. Well her horse did eventually stop at the fence but by this time she wasn’t on it anymore. The rest of the day was rather mundane I raised the roof… of the crane pen and that was about it the 6^th was no better but on the 7^th I was off to Nsonge to be a gest at a local ceremony and contrary to popular belief they didn’t try and cook me in a bubbling cauldron.  They event seemed to be in aid of someone’s engagement of something like that but it involved quite a bit of dancing. The most popular dance seemed to be one where you would swing your leg into the air, clap underneath it and then in time with the other clapping slam your foot to the ground. Now this was quite an education but the drunk granddad how could only speack IsiZulu how had been task to look after me seemed to think it was a great idea to try and get me involved in a bit of dancing, but as it appeared to only be women and him dancing I though it best to refrain. Later on I was invited to join them for some lunch of; curry and rice followed by jelly and custard and cake, so my kind of meal. After the meal the drinking started and it seemed to me that the locals were determined to try and kill me via the means of alcohol poison offering me whisky, vodka and even Zulu beer but as you can see they failed in there attempts. But they did manage to get me to stay the night at the house insisting it was too dangerous to walk back say if the drunken villages didn’t get me the bush pig would. Well I wasn’t too deterred by this IV slept in much worse places that a bed in a mud hut in my time so all in all it was quite a good nights sleep. Apart from when the chick though I would be funny to strike up conversation at 0450 in the morning, so needless to say I was rather tired for the rest of the day. So it would be sods law that the 8^th was the day all the crane tours arrived, but I didn’t fall asleep which giving them so I think I got away with it. That evening I was supposed to be back in Nsonge but my tiredness was too great and my own bed too comfy. The following day I was supposed to be feeding the cranes and giving tours again but after hearing all sorts of commotion over the radio a car came hurtling towards me and told me to get in. It was my boss and it appeared that one of the students visiting had passed out and was now been rushed off to hospital and it was my job to drive the teacher behind the ambulance and the paramedic, luckily for me the patient had been stabilised so I wasn’t about to get my first speeding ticket and actually it was all rather boring I arrived sat around for a few hours greeted the family when they arrived witness shock trauma as one of the family member though up everywhere after seeing the patient in the neck brace and then drove the teacher back to base. So quite a mundane day, but at least I got out of that office. Nothing else much has happened round hear apart from on the 12^th I was off riding again this time with two experienced riders and the new rider actually taught me how to ride. Woo Hoo, so this time after a much more controlled ride I wasn’t incredibly saw and I could actually walk normally.

Facing Giants

After the fly fishing exstraviganser you would think a rest break was in order. Well you though wrong silly. On the 26^th it was back to the office for a days preparing for the next course of 90! Grade (year) 10!! GIRLS!!! Yer this would be quite a giant to face. So the following day when the course arrived I will admit I was a bit scared but as I got to now the group they weren’t as scary as I though and with one frisking sweet lighting storm in the evening it wasn’t the horrible day I was expecting. The 28^th was a long day, well it was always going to be having too look after 90 girls but it went off with out too many problems and the 29^th was alright except for been put on night duty. No for those of you that don’t know night duty basically means its your job to get everyone in bed and quite and make sure it stays that way, so some joker though it would be great fun to put me and the quietest of interns on together on the last night. Needles to say it was a tricky night but iv managed to perfect my scary side and after sorting a few issues all was quite at around 2300, so not too bad I though. On the 30^th the course left early, like 0700 early so the rest of the day was spent unwinding and buying supplies for our braai. But unlike our usual Braais this time we had some special guest. One was a new intern having a look around to see if they wanted to join up and the other 3 were fellow lattituders. Due to it being the Easter holidays all the teachers had been granted 2weeks off and were now travelling and it just so happened that 3 of them were in my valley; so after a bit of wangling I managed to land them accommodation at the centre and we sat back and relaxed around the Braai until early in the morning discussing our African adventures. But on the 31^st they had places to be so left early in the morning but not to worry as I had a real giant to face. It had been decided that we should walk from Entabeni base camp at around 1800 meters to the top of Giants Castle at around 3350meter and 40ish km away within 4 days. Ah can’t be that hard. Well that’s what we though so to make it harder the first night we navigated in the dark. At 1630 we embarked on our journey, the plan was to walk around 11km to our first camp. But life doesn’t always go to plan. At around 2000 we believe we had found our turn off having successfully navigated the way so far so full of spirit we turned off and after making our river crossing we were sure we had made the right choice. However moment later after doing a few bearings and whipping out the GPS we realised we’d gone a bit wrong so we spent the rest of the hour walking back to our intended target. But once arriving there the situation worsened the plan was to locate the path and walk safely down into the riven, this is when we realised we could find the path in the dark so only 400meter away from our camp for the night we had to abort and go the long way round no facing the 300 drop off the cliff face. This change of plans no meant we had an extra 6km to walk and the annoying part is that 2km were spent getting back onto the path we were originally on before we took our wrong turn. But at around 2300 we found our camp for the night. The following day was a relatively easy walk only 13km to the next camp and along the contour path so as the name suggest not much up and down to do.  So after an easy days walking we arrived at our camp at the leisurely time of 1300. The only point of interest was that our camp was situated a few hundred meters from the giants hut. originally constructed my the SA air force and used by the Mountaineering club it had been handed over to park support in the agreement that they maintained it. However they had not done there job and this once very useful hut was now in a state of disrepair. Due to our early arrival at camp we dined at 1600 and quickly proceeded to go to bed as we had quite a day ahead of us. Up until now the weather had been cloudy and cold (there was snow at the top of giants) but waking up at 0500 the next day there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and so the decision was taken to push for the top.  At around 0800 we made it to the bottom of the pass and this started to get a bit trickier. The route was only 2km up but over those 2km we would ascend 800meters. So at the bottom we emptied our bag of all no essential items hid them under a big rock and embarked on our journey hoping no Besothos (Lesotho dwellers) would find our hidden stash. The walk up was tough to say the least like most mountains the gradient increased nearer the top so the last 500meters was a gruelling climb. And to dampen our spirits the clouds had started to role in, so by the time was had almost reached the saddle we were walking in cloud. But nearing the top we could see blue sky in Lesotho and we managed to summon the energy to complete our clime doing the sector in just over 2hrs. At the top it was like stepping though the wardrobe into Narnia. Lesotho was a beautiful country drenched in sunshine with horses grazing the mountainous slopes, no wonder they call it the kingdom in the sky.  But were went here for that view we were here to cap a mountain so after a quite rest we made the last 4km push to the top climbing a further 300 meters and at around 1200 we made it, we couldn’t see a thing but we didn’t care we’d done what we set off to do. Now we just had to make it down. This is where it got interesting, after stopping to put support on my doggy knees we started our decent. About 300 meters down from the saddle I heard this almighty Bag. My first though was thunder, but before I could think any more I found myself running. Instinctively after hear Matt and James shout run I did so, I remember think ‘this is silly you cant out run lightning’ but just as I had finished that though I heard the unforgettable sound of rocks falling towards me. Just at that moment I found a rock just bigger than me to take refuge behind, and just as the dust from the first splints brushed against my face I ducked into my place of refuge and clung tightly behind that rock. In the same moment the avalanche went rushing down the path I was on only a few seconds ago. Now for avalanche standards it was relatively small but for me and the other guys with me it was more than adequate, with some rocks falling bigger than me it would more than do the job of giving us quite a big fright. But what caused this, well as I hid behind that rock I was expecting gun fire to open up on us and the Besothos to charge us after there avalanche had failed to do the job. But the more logical and realistic explanation is freeze fore. Due to the resent snow fall the water in the rock had frozen and expanded and now it was foreing out there was nothing to hold the rocks together and gravity was taking over. Now its needles to say we made our way down the rest of the path in very good time after our ordeal. Befog we had been sliding down the grass and just generally having a jolly time, now the group vibe was a lot more serious. Once we made it back to our food stash the decision was made to walk the remainder of the journey to our pick up point and end a day early. Sanele who had come the closest too meeting his maker with out a moments of hesitation jumped straight onto the idea of walking all the way back. I too after some though not fancying camping under the killer mountain or on the open platto also agreed and at 1830 we entered Giant’s main camp and headed straight for the bar. In one day we had caped Giants Castle walked 28km ascended 1100m and descended 1600m as well as nearly been crushed by a few rock; so I think most people in our position would have headed for the bar.

Giants Castle sumit



800meter desent