Day Eight - Hiking in the Drakensberg

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Geo: -29.3343, 29.545

Today we enjoyed a cold breakfast at 7am. The days mission; to trek through the Drakensberg Mountains. Our guide Jonathan, lead eight of us from camp, accross the rickety Tebetebe Suspension Bridge. From there, we soon arrived at the start of the Emandindwini Trail, which would take us some 12-15km through the mountains, accross grasslands, rivers and through forests. It was a challenging hike, with rewarding views and a variety of environments. We even managed to spot some Eland along the mountaintops, and I souvenired a fallen porcupine quill from one of the forests. We started the walk around 8.15am, and arrived back at camp around 1.30pm, with little in the way of stopping for rest, sitting to eat a packed lunch in the grass along the way. I finished with plenty of blisters to mark the trip, how I missed my hiking shoes!

At 3pm, we boarded the truck to learn more about the Zulu way of life, stopping at a nearby Zulu village. This was a great experience, getting to meet and interact with some of the local people, learn of their culture, and join them in their homes. The people were happy, relaxed and appeared to be pleased and accepting of our visit. The children were especially pleased to see foreigners and extremely excited at the prospect of being shown their photo on camera. They then broke out their poses and dance moves!

Dinner was warthog and potatoes. We turned in around 9am for our last night in the Drakensberg mountains.

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Photos

Walk Start
The start of our Drakensberg Walk

Track Marker
To start the trail

Change of Scenery
From Grassland to light forest.

Eland!
Our first sighting of Eland on the trip. The largest antelope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_eland

New Scenery Again
Into the forest!

Porcupine Tracks!
... and a Quill.

Half Way through!
Enjoying the walk :)