Lazarow World-Hike-About

A scene from Robertson but after the bird flew into the blog, we left it there. (Southern Red Bishop) Mont Rochelle park entrance is at the top of the pass, encouraging the wind to blow constantly at that altitude. From the position, after paying entrance fee, acquiring a permit and chatting to the rangers in their protected office with heaters on and their cellphones in full active mode, one can venture to greater heights, including Perdekop, which reaches a further 2,800 feet or so. However, to reach the top, one begins by going down a steep ravine in order to cross a river, losing much ground and of course, having to regain that ground just to remain where one was in the first place. All-in-all, we acquired some 3,200 feet on the day, always a number to put one through one's paces. Nevertheless, it's a magnificent reserve which seems to us the equivalent of those places that are renowned for 'big skies'. The difference is this seems to have big, wide open...

Twenty minutes into the climb and the editor is already checking time. Only another 5 hours to go. 2 hours later, the editor makes a final push as she sees the peak. Traveling through the suburbs of Hermanus really stoked our interest in the town. Having found the nature reserve, we focused on which hike to undertake rather than city life below. As we knew little of the reserve, we spoke to a helpful, young fellow who gave us a quick rundown of what we should expect. We did inquire about the highest peak in the park, Aasvoelkop (Vulture Head), something we had researched previously. He could tell us of all hikes bar the one that really interested us. It appeared the rangers tended not to visit Aasvoel Peak or at least, the current staff had never hiked it. After we completed the testing walk and climb, some 2,900 feet of cumulative gain, we realized why. In fact, not in his case, but in a few other reserves, we found the rangers gathered in the office warming themselves ar...

We come over the mountain and lo and behold we are in...Fransh...or a little above it. Now we understand what they mean by the beauty of the Cape Coloreds. We left the coast and headed inland to the beautiful town of Franschhoek. It was settled, inter alia, by French Huguenots after fleeing from religious persecution in France, during the 17th century. Seems a lot of that still going around. What a world! The more we profess tolerance the less of it we have. We'll return to the coast via unpublished blogs later. Franschhoek is a beautiful town, centered around the wine industry, with a strong French flavor. It emits a wonderful atmosphere generally and for us, provides opportunity to view it from height because it's surrounded by multi-mountain ranges. The downside up in those mountains is the awfully strong winds. On both occasions that we reached Du Toitskop and Perdekop respectively, we dealt with gusting winds that were chilly, too. Nevertheless, the hiking h...

The fynbos, so attractive and covering much of the region, with Lion's Head below and to the west. On the day before we hiked up Devils Peak via Newlands Ravine, we undertook a fast. Whether the fast should have slowed us down or sped us up, we don't know. We are often confused so it was another dilemma. It seems silly that fasting should have a slowing effect on a person. One might expect that fasting would quicken a person's pace rather than slowing it. Anyway, the hike proved to be strenuous because we were still in fast mode or should that read 'slow' or perhaps because it actually was tough. Whatever the case, this 5-part trailblazer had us feeling very tired when we returned to the car. Our vehicles realize that we almost always return in a completely different mode from departure. When eventually they drive and Google for themselves, who knows what they'll believe we get up to on the trails. The first section was up a steep incline followed by a...