Northern Drakensberg Adventures

When a friend of mine, Carl Smorenburg (check him out on Instgram @carlsmorenburg_ or www.carlsmorenburg.co.za), messaged me the route and description of a hike to the Northern Drakensberg back in January of 2017, I showed great interest as it is an area of the Berg I had yet to discover and there were a number of photographic opportunities I knew we could explore. I also knew that I would be an epic adventure as this is a rather rugged part of the Drakensberg. Taking a break from my regular commercial architectural photography, the route was planned to be undertaken over 5 days and was to be made up of 4 hikers and a guide. Carl also let me know that a fellow landscape photographer that I follow, Mark Dumbleton (www.markdumbleton.com), would be coming along and I was keen to meet up. As it turned out Mark and his mate Rudi were not up for the challenge of Fangs Pass and decided to stay behind with the guide in the Little Berg.

So the route was from the Mweni Cultural Centre along the paths of the Little Berg to the bottom of the Fangs Pass then traverse along the top of the Escarpment to Mpongwana and descend Rockeries Pass. We stayed overnight on night 1 in Smugglers Cave but still needed to put up tents inside the cave as the torrential rain was coming into the cave. Fortunately it didn’t rain all night and we where treated to a magnificent sunrise with the cliffs of The Madonna and her Worshippers being illuminated brilliantly red by the first light of the sun’s rays.

After some breakfast and packing up, we all headed up the base of Fangs Pass together and then Carl and myself left Mark and Rudi at the waterfall and continued where the Pass becomes an uphill boulder-hopping experience along the river for about 3kms (not pleasant!). As the river veers to the right up a different gulley, the Pass gets really steep up a rocky, grass embankment for another km and a half or so. This took us over 2hrs just for this section. We reached the top around 5pm after 9 hrs on the trail. Once we setup camp near the edge, for good morning views and out of sight of the Basutho’s for safety, we were treated to a brief moment of a clear view of the Milky Way before being engulfed in cloud and then retiring for some much needed rest.

So you’ll notice the pictures below detail much of the route and the adventure. The branded images are the hero shots taken with my Canon 5D3 DSLR camera on a lightweight Sirui tripod.

The long grass and thick bush as we start Day 2.

This is why it’s called Fangs Pass. A classic iPhone image showing this gnarly mountain landscape.

A brief stop at the waterfall at the bottom of the Pass to refill the water bottles. Acting quite strong at this stage but that didn’t last long!

Carl just ahead navigating his way through the boulders of the river about a third of the way up the Pass.

This view near the top as the sun broke out and lit the landscape before us and dramatic could and storms in the distance.

Once our camp was setup up and dinner cooked, we had a brief moment of clear skies while lightning in the distance lit up the clouds.

On Day 2 we awoke to dramatic skies but beautiful light on the horizon which became what was to be one of my best sunrises in the Berg. And to view it with The Madonna and her Worshippers in the foreground was such a treat. On route back from the early morning photography session, a massive storm hit us with high winds and sideways, sheeting rain. My tent couldn’t handle it and was being blown off the mountain. We made a decision to pack up our gear and get hiking as the weather didn’t look like improving and we were very open to the elements where we were. Packing up was a challenge and then we were on our way. But thankfully, not too long after we were hiking, the rain subsided and then the high winds helped to dry us off a bit. After about an hour the sun shone its face and we were rather warm the rest of the day. A freak Berg storm that can come through so quickly. We decided to push through on Day 3 and do the planned 2 days of hiking in the one day as all our gear was wet and we need to get to the Mpongwana Cave for the next night as more storms were forecast again.

Madonna and her Worshippers, the rock formation on the left, as the sun rises behind the Mweni Needles and the tall peak of Mpongwana or Rockeries Tower where we’d spend our third night.

Around lunch time on day 3 we reach the viewpoint of the Mweni Pinnacles. Note Carl composing his shot in the bottom left of this capture.

Mweni Pinnacles on the left and Mpongwana/Rockeries Tower on the right.

We saw so much of this beautiful small yellow flower in bloom and often walked through large fields of it on top of the escarpment.

The scary traverse down to Mpongwana Cave for our last night. I might have been smiling for the photo but not while going down!

Night 3 was spent in Mpongwana Cave which was quite scary to get down to, especially on very weary legs that have just done a second day of 9hrs of walking. But the Cave was a welcome sight and very comfortable, especially since it did rain rather heavily again in the early evening and most of the night. We managed to get a few shots of a less dramatic sunrise on our last morning before heading down Rockeries Pass for our last push back to the Mweni Cultural Centre.

We woke up to rain on our last morning but a small gap in the cloud on the horizon allowed for a colourful sunrise. This is Rockeries in the foreground, the North Saddle to the right and in the distance, Cathedral Peak, the Bell and the Mitre of the Cathedral Spur.

The final day of a 1.6km vertical descent down Rockeries Pass, from the Cave of the night before to the Mweni Cultural Centre where we started.

Rockeries Pass was a real challenge for me, mostly due to the sheer exhaustion of the previous 3 days. I reached a low point in the hike near the bottom of Rockeries, probably the worst I’d ever felt in the Berg, but this is why it is good to have great people around you on adventures like this and Carl was superb in encouraging me to the finish and then we had many stories to recount on the way home.

This was one of the toughest adventures I’ve ever undertaken in the Drakensberg but I trust you’ll agree with me that some of the imagery above make it fully worth it. If you wish to purchase any of these images I have listed some of the hero shots in my online store. Click here to view >>