KwaZulu Natal

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Drakensberg Amphitheater views

South Africa has two iconic "flat" mountains.  Table Mountain in the west and the Drakensberg's Amphitheater in the east.  It is below the Amphitheater in the Royal Natal National Park that we camped at Mahai during December and like with Table Mountain I just could not get enough of looking up at the Amphitheater.  Well truthfully, not just the Amphitheater but all the mountains around us, but that's what you do when you live in a city by the coast.…

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26/04/2017
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The welcome sight of a campsite rainbow

At the end of each thunderstorm in the Drakensberg there is a rainbow.  Something campers look forward to when the first drops come down.

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08/03/2017
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Sunday Falls Trail – Royal Natal National Park

How can one visit the Drakesnberg and not do some of the amazing hiking trails the Berg has to offer to take in the magnificent mountain views, streams and waterfalls around?  Over the ten days we spent camping at Mahai in the Royal Natal National Park in the Northern Drakensberg we split our time between doing some of the day walks around the park and just chilling in the campsite.  Over the first few days we took the walk up…

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06/03/2017
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Hiking to Tiger Falls – Royal Natal National Park

The Drakensberg is famous for the trails that crisscross her spine, meanders across her back, explore her valleys, marvel at her fabulous buttresses, enter her wooded vales, wade through her streams and end up at waterfalls flowing over her.  It's enough to want to throw your head back and shout in ecstasy.  Yes I know what that all sounded like, but heck, that mountain truly is sexy.  For our ten days of camping at Mahai in the Royal Natal National…

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01/03/2017
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Swimming at Cascades – Royal Natal National Park

When you arrive at Mahai campsite in the Royal Natal National Park in the Drakensberg, one of the first things you notice is that there is no swimming pool.  "What! No swimming pool? How is one supposed to cool down on those hot barmy summers days while camping?" you ask.  Mahai doesn't have a swimming pool for a purpose.  The campsite sits on the banks of the Mahai River and 15 minutes upstream along the Queen's Causeway is where you…

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27/02/2017
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Mahai Campsite – heaven in the Drakensberg

Nestled in a beautiful valley in the Royal Natal National Park of the Northern Drakensberg is a campsite that regularly makes lists of top campsites in South Africa. Six years ago we discovered Mahai Campsite for the first time and spend an unfortunate holiday there during major floods that hit the area that summer.  Even with all that it still counts as one of our favorite holidays and when we left that year we vowed to be back some time.…

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17/02/2017
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Camping in the Drakensberg

The general holiday question is always, BEACH or BUSH?  I will probably choose bush over beach 7 out of 10 times but that's because I live on the coast.  It's also because I love getting away to a forest, the bush, a game reserve or the wide open spaces of the Karoo.  Although I feel you can group all these things into the BUSH category, something is definitely missing from that question though.  MOUNTAINS, definitely mountains.  The question should be…

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13/02/2017
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The Drakensberg Amphitheatre

The Amphitheatre must surely be the most recognised and best know feature of the Drakensberg and looked down over us while we were camping in the Royal Natal National Park in December.  The Amphitheatre is over 5 kilometers in length and the cliffs along its entire face is about 1 220 meters high at average.  The source of the Tugela River is up in this section of the Drakensberg and the Tugela Falls, the second highest waterfall in the world…

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08/02/2017
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Approaching thunderstorms in the Drakensberg

Everybody who has ever been on holiday, weekend away or a hiking trip in the Drakensberg in summer will tell you that you are very likely to have your afternoon interrupted by a little, or sometimes a rather big, thunderstorm bringing along with it some thunder and lighting and a few (which could also be quite a lot) drops of rain.  Our 10 days at Mahai in the Northern Drakesberg's Royal Natal National Park was no different and while there…

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17/01/2017
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Admiring the Amphitheatre in the Northern Drakensberg

2017 has kicked off and the ball is in the air with all the players jostling for places below trying to catch what the year is kicking their way.  We ended off 2016 with two weeks camping in the Royal Natal National Park (RNNP) in the Drakensberg hence my little stretch of silence.  I have so many pictures from the trip I'm working through and some of them really show off the beauty of that area very well which means…

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09/01/2017