Day 59 - Wolweberg Arch and Cracks

Pretty much alone in the 'Sanddrift Campsite' all night, we were in the carpark at the foot of the Wolfberg, a fraction before 08:00, remembering the sun here in the Cape doesn't shine before then. A chilly sub 4° start, at 0800 was a reasonable start time. At the get go, an evil wind blew, and felt like it more than halved that temperature!!! The Wolfberg is a 'mother' mountain ridge within the greater Cederberg Mountain Range and runs pretty much East to West. The morning sun thus doesn't even reach the South Face of the cliffs all day. Hence the wind from the south was bitter and the suns warmth never reached us all morning.

En route we past the 'Valley of the Red God's' an incredible array. Hundreds of grotesque stone pieces, sprawlled across the landscape, some several meters high on this confused chest board, and all different shades of red. How and when did this ever happen, is simply inconcievable!?

Immediately we started to climb, briskly at first and soon we realised that we were only ascending, very gently on a contour path, up to the foot of the most incredible cliff faces. Until we started our journey and over all our years, we had only ever heard of the Cederburg and probably last in a Standard 5 Geography exam. These days the word 'awesome' has been denegraded and chucked around left, right and center! What happened next, can only be described as 'AWESOME'!!! May this now precious word be spared and only used when no other adjective or adverb can be replaced, and only if all of you have scaled the Wolfberg, to the Cracks and the Arch!!!

Three massive 'Cracks' have parted the cliff face, at first only 5 or 10 meters from wall to wall, and also only 5m or so deep! Vertical slabs of mainly Sandstone mixed with granite and marble pebbles stones, rocks and boulders, rise 100m or more into the sky. These cuts into the wall extend eighty to a hundred and maybe more meters, deep into the Earths wound. What ever the hell happened here millions of years ago must have been almighty! Wind, water, snow and ice. Hot and cold, rivers of larvae and seas, storms and gales of note. Seismic explosions, implosions and avalanches and floods and drought, everything and anything possible including all of the above. Petrified rocks and gullies hundreds of meters deep and high, to crevices and cracks only wide enough to creep through and over. Fallen shears exactly where they shouldn't be meant squeezing, crawling, slipping and sliding, searching to find minute crevices and foot holes just out of reach.

The lady back at the reception glibly scribbled a route with a pink highlighter on a very vague and 'un-scaled' map the route up and through. We had (and neither did she) ever imagine the extent of this excursion. "It could be very technical in places..." she told us as she marked the map, and very sweetly sent us on our way, to what was next door to hell! Even Indiana Jones would have been amazed and probably even petrified himself.

Dangerous? Very definitely, and every step was a concentrated and measured shuffle or leap. There was zero room for any slight error. Tiptoeing in places where Angel's fear to tread! Suddenly I was reminded of my first movie date, one of those.... 4 male and four female teenagers, now you were on a date! We went to a musical movie back in the late '70's the original, 'A Star is Born' starring Chris Christoffersen and Barbara Strisand. The words of one of the movie title tracks.... "When it gets scary, dont look down" came to mind🤔

We measured the total distance hiked at just over 16km and probably only half of that, as the crow fly's. The rest a snake, gradually up (and down), but mainly shear elevations to the top and through. "Technical" I guess, was heaving ourselves up with rope 'handles' and wooden foot-cleats bolted into the rock wall at strategic places. A flimsy rope, but professionally attached to the side of a cliff was all we had, as we shuffled slowly around the flat belly of the cliff, more than 100m vertically above certain death! Perched on the edge of a lip only a ruler wide and 20 meters long, Karen screamed so loud it echoed across the valley, so loud I thought she had slipped! The 'drama queen' had literally put her hand on a frog, hiding in an erroded cleft, nearly 200m above anything! A 'padda'... Johan Meyer, not a 'Parra'!!!All the while, above giddy cliffs hundreds of meters straight down to fallen boulders and sheared rock. Several tonnes in weight, and many more than 10m high and just less in diameter!

As the sun rose, and rays filtered into the precipice's, the most incredible prism of colours converted dark and dingy gullies into the most beautiful walkways and coves. Unlike the Cango Caves, no need for colorful artificial lighting. Massive shapes, reflecting light into these endless passages and the way forward, all the time ascending inward and upward into the gut!

Indy movies could be filmed in here and on top of the mountain and way down below in the valley, Cowboy movies mixing it up with the 'Red God's' would be epic! These grotesque and gigantic shapes ranging from upward of 2m to 7 or 8 in height were amazing. Once we emerged hundreds of meters higher, and out from under these rock-falls we still had all of 3 kilometers to the Wolfberg Arch. (Check out the pics). Under the Arch, we sat and ate our 'padkos' Breakfast, way after lunchtime. All six of these kilometers were not just on a flat plateau and a walk in the park. Up and down and around rocky formations and undulations extending the distance, two fold. All of ten meters high a natural and perfect Arch, making those previous wooden 'pose-frames' in other parks, pedestrian!Peering down from both sides of the Arch the view down into both valleys, was breathtakingly beautiful. Just before we commenced our decent off the Arch, a little Robin joined us and ate every crumb we offered, right next to my foot. I noticed it had been ringed with a tag on its foot, but didn't get the opportunity to read the number or whatever, stamped on it.

The decent was certainly not as fearful as going up, although every step down also needed to be measured, and at any moment could have meant something broken, even more than once! No cellphone signal, no logbook to check climbers in and out, no one in the world even knowing where we were and if we had returned safely.

Seriously bushed but unscathed we got down, had a mean shower and very many cold ones that I had promised myself all day🍻

That hike was easily the toughest and most 'awesome' outing on our journey so far, if not the toughest since the 'Comrades Marathon' years ago!

A blissful eight hours sleep though cold outside, meant a late start and on the back-foot for the rest of the day, chasing daylight hours!

Love, Peace and Light
M&K
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