Week 5 & Northern Drakensberg

---

This weekend we didn't head to Durban, instead after we finished work on Friday, we headed straight to the Amphitheatre backpackers in the Northern Drakensberg. A slightly longer drive than we expected, but not too bad. We arrived before dark, so it was all good. The backpackers was a bit like a flash packers place. It had a jacuzzi inside the bar area, a gorgeous rock pool outside, along with a braai area. A loft upstairs with couches and internet. Plus the view was pretty good. Lucy and Bonnie met Sophie and I later in the evening. We spent the evening catching up, before the others went to bed fairly early. Me (the oldest by far), stayed up for awhile longer and chatted to some other travellers.

Next morning we headed into the Royal Natal Park. This is home of some of the most beautiful area in the Northern Drakensberg. I wanted to do a short 2 hour walk with lots of rock pools for swimming along the way and cascades to view. The other 3 wanted to do a longer 5 hr walk through the gorge.. I didn't want to walk alone, so the long walk it was. It was a lovely walk, but I had worn my hiking sandals rather than my boots, so it was a little difficult walking back through the mud after it started raining. But I am glad we went, the views were spectacular and the longer walk did me good. We ate our lunch in the gorge on the river. We stopped our walk here, but others continued on towards a part where you have to climb up a chain ladder and you eventually get to see the waterfall. The day we walked someone slipped and broke his ankle, so the rescue guys were called in. Very interesting watching that all work.

The evening we went to a fantastic italian place in the middle of nowhere called 'The Tower of Pizza'. Gotta love the name and the random location. The food was fantastic though. It was a great dinner. We then had a couple of drinks at the bar, before the others all went to bed before me again. This time I was doing some internet stuff, but still....

Sunday morning we relaxed by the pool until we left at around 1pm. This was perfect (or not so perfect) as the rain started to come down at this point. The drive home was crazy. I could hardly see on the road at times, had to slow down so much. But we made it safely without incident. We even had time to detour to a tea shop to buy tea and have a mocha to break up the journey..

This week at Woza Moya I did some more admin stuff to help Sue become more organised. More photo scanning, copy of photos onto one cd, formatting cd's... lots of stuff that didn't feel that important, but are very useful for Sue. Tuesday morning we went out with Jane to do some home visits. It was interesting to see how she arrived at one home to talk to them about some issues but ended up having 3 different people's situations to deal with. Lots of different problems, ranging from their ability to get access to Government Grants that they are entitled to, to people defaulting on their medication due to lack off funds to get to the clinic in Ixopo. It's difficult, as often there is not much that they can do to help. Woza Moya can help with grant applications, but does not hand out money. We also saw a 14 year old boy with mental retardation tied to a pole in the kitchen. As much it was difficult to watch, it was an improvement from when he was tied up outside in the sun or rain.... if he was allowed to run free he would hurt himself...Tough situation.

Sophie worked with Seabonga (the gardener) to fix the chicken shed. It was funny watching them do it, but hard work for them too. I popped out in-between what I was doing to offer encouragement and take photos..... I gave some excel lessons to Sue and suggested some easier ways for her to do her work. Hopefully it will help.

The BRC was its usual interesting week. A nice group of people again. Last week was all women, this week men and couples. Spent 2 nights chatting to a Scottish guy who had to leave the UK for a few months to avoid tax.... interesting guy (but unfortunately an English accent rather than Scottish). Wednesday night Sue took us to one of her friends in the area that works on a farm. We drank wine and ate chicken looking out over the valley with 6 dogs looking on. As we were leaving, driving down the driveway, we were chased by Sue's friend. We had a flat tyre. So glad it happened there as he changed the tyre for us. Would not have been good to happen out on the road. Apparently we weren't far from one of the most dangerous roads/places in the area, not a place we would have like to have broken down in the middle of the night. The drive home was so misty it was difficult to see the road at times. Because of this, Sue somehow managed to turn off one street too soon. We were driving down the road with Sue saying.... 'I can't believe how much the trees have grown in such a short time'. Eventually realising that it was probably the wrong street, and turning back. But all in all it was a good evening. The weather has been good to us this week, only raining in the evening. One morning the mist was sitting below us in the valley, providing great photo opportunities. Looked so peaceful, serene and beautiful. I really do like it here.

---