Wednesday Walk - Waterfall Hike up & getting stuck on the mountain

Greetings from North-West, South Africa!

This will probably be my last Wednesday walk (a little bit late at that) post covering Rainhill, for a while at least. (Still planning on doing a 'The History Of' kind of thing at some stage though)
This time around I will be showing everyone around the much more challenging Waterfall trail, which I am willing to admit, left me with more than one injury...mostly due to mild dumb-assery on my part.

We actually arrived over an hour too early as the times when the owners unlock the gate had changed from what was on the signs. It did give me an opportunity to take a few shots of said signs, and the main entrance, before heading back home for a few more cups of coffee.

As a side note...it looks like I will need to contact the family who owns the farm soon, before it is sold, and even more of the history there is lost.

Some nice stuff to take photos of before starting the real hike.

In order to go on this hike, you will first need to collect the gate key from the owner, then follow the signs, which will lead you past a bit of a squeeze to get to the gate which will allow you access to the trail.

The signs will tell you everything you need to know about your trail and detour options...I would highly recommend reading them thoroughly and maybe even taking a photo of them before heading out. The trails are marked, but it is very easy to get lost and even stuck on the mountain ridge (which happened to me)

It is difficult to show exactly how steep this trail is and how high up it goes...

On the way up, you will see this interesting bush, which is something I had not seen before. Lucky thing it had been raining recently!

Travelling further upwards, the trail getting so steep that I sometimes had to use my hands (all while clutching my camera so it wouldn't damage) to get up the path. The view is worth the effort though!

It was still early in the hike, so we decided to take the detour, which mostly led to more decent views but no pottery fragments, they had probably also been stolen...

This little detour...let's just say the view was lovely, but getting stuck on top of the mountain ridge after losing sight of the trail markers was not. It is here where I managed to fall on my bum like an idiot, cutting my hand on a sharp stone and bruising my hip on a branch. The hike lasted for another two and a half hours after that, but I didn't want to risk falling on the loose rocks again, so I tucked my camera away for the time being.

Once we eventually managed to get ourselves back on the waterfall trail, we soon came across a nice little area with some little puddles and streams, where we stopped to have some chocolate and water. We could even hear the waterfall close by now!

...and just like that, after taking a few more steps...we were finally there! It is almost impossible to fully capture the beauty of this place but I tried...

(The video is a bit shaky due to there being no even surface ton stand on)

Now, here is why I mentioned the importance of reading the signs for your route properly...we spent about fifteen minutes searching for the rest of the route and finding absolutely no way forward...luckily, I was able to go through the photos in my camera and read the sign again, as it clearly stated that we had to come back the way we came... (Oops)

While slightly lost around the waterfall area, I did however stumble onto this weirdness...there is now ay for anyone to get up here without walking for at least two and a half hours...yet, even on a hot day like this, the fruit was clearly fresh, as if having been put there no longer than two or three hours ago. I have no idea who would have done this, or why, but it seemed a little bit creepy to me, so after taking a few photos, I hauled out of there as fast as I could, all the way back to the main gate.

The full hike took a us a little over four hours to complete, but it was definitely an interesting experience.

Well...that's it!
Till next time!

Credit : All photos are my own, taken using Nikon D5000 camera which I still need to RTFM for.
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