I had the first weekend off cycling for a few months, by going hiking in the Groot Winterhoek wilderness area. We did a 13km out and back route from the start to a hut at De Tronk. Unfortunately Saturday’s 13km turned out more like about 15km, and with substantially more climbing and bushwhacking than planned, when we missed a critical turn in the path. We added about 2 hours onto our outbound trip as a result. When we did get back to the trail though, we found some great pools and stopped for lunch.

We overnighted next to a big old barn and ate packet pasta, washed down with some good red wine, port and biscotti. The wind came up in the middle of the night and by the early morning it was raining with a lot of thunder and big lightning. Not ideal conditions in which to begin a hike. We packed up and got ready hoping it would clear a little, but eventually set off at 9am in a steady drizzle. Fortunately it stopped raining at about 10am and started to clear, eventually turning into a beautiful clear day with 32deg of heat. The route back was a lot easier than Saturday since we stuck to the marked path, and we got back to our cars by 3:30pm.

There’s some pics at http://www.nickcoyne.com/cpg132/thumbnails.php?album=43