Wild and wonderful Wolkberg
The Wolkberg is not a place I would explore alone, so I recruited two friends and fellow mountain guides, Garry Townsend and Shane Anderson, to join me on an expedition.
We only had three free days, so it would have to be a fast mission. The morning before my birthday, we began the four-hour drive from Pretoria to the Serala forestry station. We arrived to find an abandoned office and no mountain register. Shane and I prepared lunch while Garry, a former Haenertsburg resident, whipped out some maps and gave us a run-down of the intended circuit: We would descend into the Mohlapitse Valley, walk upstream along the river and turn off into a forest called the Wonderwoud. Day two would see us climb through the forest to a saddle, detour to a scary section called Devil’s Knuckles, ascend Kruger’s Nose and top out at The Horns and Cleopatra’s Pools. On Day three, we’d head past the MCSA hut, look for the bum slides, make our way back down to the Mohlapitse River and climb all the way back to Serala.
When the staff eventually returned to the office, we paid for our permits and saddled our packs. The sun was long past its zenith; we had to hustle. We left the forestry station along an old jeep track. Before us lay the expanse of the 22000ha wilderness area – and not a cloud in sight!
section was a gruelling descent into the Mohlapitse Valley. After more than an hour of jarred knees and jammed toes, we dropped below the grassland and into the forest, finally being rewarded with
