Hiking in Krantzkloof

At least for once this trip, we didn't explore by car, but by hiking. My sister had read that in the nature reserve there were two major tails: the northern loop of 11km and the southern loop (9km) where you could find zebras. Although we would have preferred to walk a not longer (since we didn't believe that 4-5 hours for 9km could actually be true), we really wanted to see the zebras.
What she hadn't told us was that both trails were marked as “difficult“. The first few kilometers were fine, also along the zebra territory (unfortunately they weren't there today), but then there were many steep ups and downs on tight, rocky paths and several crossings of the pretty filled and fast river. You couldn't really get to the other side with dry feet, and when my mum tried, she slipped and landed, including her backpack, in the ripping stream.
Another difficulty came from the kite spiders (small, colorful spiders in the shape of kites - it's worth googling a picture of them, they look really cool but are difficult to fotograph): they spanned there large nets all over the trail and for every step you did, you had to make sure not to run face-first into one of them. In general, it seemed like nobody had done this hike in a while, since the path was already growing over again.
It was fun and adventurous, but towards the end we were actually glad about having made it to the exit.Read more