Fairies and Hogs
Our next stop was Hogsback. Fellow travellers Ross & Michelle who we met in the N Drakensburgs recommended this lovely place. And we literally would have had no intention of going there.
Unfortunately, to go to Hogsback coming from the East you had to spend the night in East London. Their shuttle ran once a day and it was in the morning and we didn’t get there until the afternoon (there’s only 1 run from Umtata to E London/day on the bus). Not that E London was that bad – but we chose the loudest place – E London Backpackers – and they had a school group there. Need I say more? No sleep for John and Cindy.
The next day we got the shuttle to Hogsback. To Away with the Fairies. Unbelievably gorgeous view of the Hogs 1-3 (they kind of looked like those pigs that have been stuffed with the apple in the mouth except for they have those little ridges on their backs – hence the name hogsback instead of pigsback). And for 2 nights we had this little bungalow all to ourselves with our own kitchenette and bathroom (another couple came on the 3rd night)! Score! It was called, yes, I kid you not, The Hobbit. Someone was an amazing artist because they had painted darn near all the interior rooms with fairy themes – though fortunately not overkill – supposedly it may have been the inspiration for the Tolkien series…no idea.
The first full day we were there we decided to conquer Hog 1. Unfortunately, we, like in Costa Rica, were following a beloved cartoon map. We were okay for the first several miles. We followed the yellow footprints (they were marking the path). And then the path came to a forest road. And there was this giant yellow footprint that marked going up. So we bushwhacked this part. To the next forestry road. We literally ended up on our hands and knees crawling through the brush. Which, of course, we found out was unnecessary. But more to that later. We headed down this road and finding no more of our helpful yellow footprints we finally ran into this gentleman that was able to show us point us the right way. Unfortunately, thinking we were going to have to crawl through the brush again and it had taken us quite a bit longer than we thought, we decided not to summit the hog. So we took lunch at the bottom of the hog and headed back. On the way back was this lovely little well-marked trail that had a huge yellow fotprint that led us to trail back to our hostel. I’m not sure if the yellow footprint guy was smoking some good stuff when he decided to mark our bushwhacking trail or if the rock just happened to be handy and he had extra yellow paint. Alas, had we known we could have gone to the top, but better safe than sorry – after all, we are in Africa, not Seattle.
The next day we had another day of hiking without mishap. And we got back in time for John to watch a soccer match between Man U and someone else. while I chatted with some travellers in the common area. We had already watched another match and I wasn’t inclined to sit there and watch 2. I’m just not a double-header kind of girl.
So that ends our hiking in S Africa (I think!)…Hogsback was definitely more tree-ey than the N Drakensburgs – and much more lovely as far as I’m concerned. And the hostel people were much nicer – and that can make most of the difference in the world…off to Stellenbosch (after a long night on a bus!)…the S African capital of wines…yummy…
Tags: RTW Trip, South Africa
JohnCin
John/Cindy:
Check your e-mail please. I received a phone call from someone looking for John – it sounds like the same type of thing that happened with Cindy a couple of weeks ago.