By the third day in the Drakensberg the cold had passed and the sun shone again. It’s amazing how much nicer the whole resort seemed with a bit of warmth. We ventured up the nearest slope to view the surrounding vistas and weren’t disappointed. The Drakensberg really are quite beautiful and so very, very big.
I was a bit concerned about how much energy it took to climb a short height; even with a few rounds of ‘the bear went over the mountain’ it still seemed a struggle… and then Dad enlightened us to his ‘just a bit of trivia’ knowledge he’d gleaned from the manager of the resort… Our chalet was at 5600ft (that’s 1,200ft higher than Ben Nevis, the highest point in the UK, and we’d been climbing even higher!) No wonder it was hard going! Something to do with altitude!
The same manager (lovely local) was very chatty and when we arrived he proudly pointed out all of the creatures who lived on the resort and who passed through. When he indicated his flowerbeds and announced that Eland regularly trampled them down, I mentioned that in St Lucia, we had hippos wandering up to our back door, and after that he became strangely quiet… ;-)
