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The Gaudy Commodore jinks and weaves tantalising in front of us as we walk slowly towards the familiar cup shaped peaks along the Pholela River. We are traversing the Montane grasslands on the slopes of the little Berg in the southern uKhahlamba-Drakensberg and enjoying the company of our brilliantly showy friend as he (or she) gambols over the themeda grasslands stopping now and then to inspect a likely looking flowerhead cluster. The sun highlights flashes of iridescent blue and crimson. Our elusive companion is neither a landlocked matelot, nor a new type of trout fly, but Precis octavia sesamus to be precise, as a Lepidopterist may prefer to call this beautiful butterfly.
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The beauty of walking in the Berg is the ability to get up close and personal with the natural world. And the walker always has company. A small-unidentified snake crosses the path, and as we rest a net-winged beetle, splendid in showy black and chocolate brown markings, moves slowly up a grass stem to feed on the nectar.
Armed with Peter Slingsby's well-worn map of the southern Berg, we are on a day hike to the junction of the Pholela River and its tributary, the iNhlabeni from the campsite at Cobham Nature Reserve. We have always enjoyed this walk as it meanders easily over the grassland and gives uninterrupted views of Hodgsons Peaks on the berg summit. The walk also is an excellent access point both to the many caves and tributaries on the Pholela.
At Boundary Rock we meet two groups of young hikers making their way down after overnighting at the popular Pholela and Spectacle caves. And then we are on our own again - for a few hundred metres at least until another Gaudy commodore is sighted up ahead.
Between Boundary and Monster Rocks the hard basalt crowds in on the river squeezing the banks until downstream it resumes its languid course snaking across the grasslands and to the distant tree line at Cobham.
After a few hundred metres the valley opens up again onto a wide meander interspersed with clumps of rosy Erica's and yellow everlastings. To our right, a big troop of baboons is moving slowly across the northern slopes, guards out front and a solitary male keeping watch as the females and juveniles feeds on bulbs and all the small beasties and other things lurking under stones.
My favourite spot on this walk is Boundary (sometimes called Whale Rock) where to the best of my knowledge, in 1835 we can mark down the first recorded sketch of the Berg drawn by a European traveller. The missionary Captain Alan Gardiner had travelled up the Pholela seeking a way over the mountains. The party camped at Boundary Rock and he recorded the scene in "Narrative of a journey to the Zooloo country". One can imagine the San looking quizzically down from their hidden places in the little Berg at this pale visitor with brush and canvas sketching a vista the San people had been doing quite nicely for millennia.
Boundary Rock remains unchanged. Faint traces of San Rock Art are still visible under the sheltered eastern face. Around the rockbase, which aeons ago tumbled down from the cave sandstone cliffs, woody trees and shrubs have established themselves, typically bracken fern (pteridium aquilinum), Ouhout, (leucosidea sericea) with a nice example of Highveld Cabbage Tree (Cussonia paniculata), Wild Fuschia (Halleria lucida) and the Wild Dagga ( Leonotis leonuris) both very showy in their bright winter flower. In the lee of Boundary Rock a small stream leaps through the rocks from the buttressed heights of eSiphongweni.
Cobham is easily accessible from Durban and Pietermaritzburg and is a hop and a skip away from nearby Himeville and Underberg. The Umzimkulu section of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg is a wilderness area, so camping conditions are spartan, be warned, and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife only recently installed heaters in the showers. This didn't put off a group of geography students from the Department of Environmental Sciences at UKZN in Pietermaritzburg who were in residence at Cobham over the weekend, complete with smart tents and a sophisticated amacookacooka. The Pholela is a good test bed for measuring river flows and drainage slopes and under the watchful eyes of their professor they were engaged for the best part of the weekend, scattered along the river and little Berg conducting their experiments.
Many hikers know Cobham as the first overnight stop of the five-day Giants Cup trail from Sani Pass to Bushman's Nek. The hut was unoccupied over our weekend, but in holiday season there is a succession of hikers staying over. Some indeed start the multi-day hike from here.
At the reception office, Ezemvelo has highlighted the By-Pass Ridge day hike, which allows hikers to walk from the campsite over the suspension bridge and reverse walk part of the first day up the Troutbeck tributary and then return to the camp via By Pass Ridge. This is a delightful walk over a well-maintained wetland area interspersed with Ouhout bush, allowing one to contour gently following the Troutbeck with the frowning heights of Ndlovini looming up ahead. The Troutbeck was flowing moderately, but there were plenty of flattened grass above the water line, tell-tale signs of recent heavy falls. We spotted a good-sized herd of Eland on the opposite slopes. High above a Jackal Buzzard inspected us briefly before catching a thermal upwards and out of sight behind the little Berg.
One of the highlights of our weekend was meeting the Ezemvelo man on duty, one Wenzislaus Mduduzi Duma who is a real treasure and a walking, talking advertisement for the conservation service at Cobham. Courteous, helpful to a high degree, the very model of a public servant he showed us where exactly to stand on a high point outside the office to pick up cellular reception from Himeville, 13 km off to the east. He regularly checked to see that all was in order around the shaded campsite, in the process apologising for the behaviour of two middle aged banshee campers who competed with a baboon troop come midnight. Most impressive - and most importantly he voluntarily offered us a complimentary copy of Wildside magazine. Now how's that for earning brownie points from guests. |
