We met at diggers retreat just after 8am. One of the people joining the group got a bit lost on the way there, so we ended up only leaving close to 9am.
(google earth/maps apparently gives the incorrect address for Diggers retreat hotel).
There was only four vehicles in our group. a ranger, prado and cruiser bakkie. myself with the 4.5 patrol...
Lots of steep rocky climbs on this trail. To a lesser degree, synonymous with rust de winters type of rocky terrain...
The patrol made it look easy though...
we finished the "trail" part at about 12:30. had lunch, then looked for a detour exit route. we ended up taking an overgrown forestry road.
Which was a narrow overgrown "road" on the side of the mountain, with a steep decent on the right hand side...
This ended up in 4 hours of bush clearing, road building, driving over small trees, cutting down slightly bigger trees, pulling bigger fallen trees out of the road...etc..
And then after all of this, the road was blocked due to a landslide which left us with no option but to turn around and head all the way back to the original trail, then drive back the way we came .. this time driving down the steep mountain path. (a big part of the trail we drove in the dark...)
(I only got home a 9pm....)
Will definitely do this trail again. There is also a possibility to drive further into the mountains to an overnight (bush camping) spot.... will give this a go next time.
Then there is also the "piet se pad" 4x4 trail not too far from where we were - looking into possibility to combine the two in one outing..
.............................
(*from this thread: http://patrol4x4.co.za/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=6937)
).
