In my previous post I was writing about how beautiful it was in Cathedrals Peak located in the center of South Africa in the Drakensbergen mountains. And it is not only a national park, it is also filled with hiking routes along the way.
Time to go on a little hike to Doreen falls. The hike takes about 1.5 hour as a round trip which was perfect to do at rhe end of the day, because during the day it was like 35 degrees Celsius but most of all...not a cloud to be seen and sunpower 13 aka crispy bakingskin.
The end of the day
Hiking at the end of the day always feels a bit edgy because you only have a certain amount of hours you hike can take before it gets dark and rhe real situation starts.
The early morning is surely better for this but the timing just isnt always right.
So at the start of the hike which you can do from Cathedrals peak hotel it was a bit of a search in what direction to go since there were so many paths and hiking routes everywhere to follow. Got to pick the right one before you end up on another peak!
But eventually we found the right path and it was good to go. I really dont like hiking too much elevation and this one only had like 200 meters elevation in there, so that seemed more than reasonable to do.
With some nice and funny looking plants and flowers along the way this turned into even a more floral hike than I had expected.
Remember this is above 2000 meters altitude so the vegetation tends to change a lot and become less densed
On to the water fall!
Did I already mention it was really hot during the day. I did right? So most important during one of these mountain hikes to get that managed proper.
Luckily they had some cool water from the Drakensbergen springs that we couls take with us.
Admittingly..I didnt have one of those refillable botels with me because I am quite low packed on my bags.
But the cool thing as well is that there is an option to fill the bottle in the little rivers that also run next to the hiking paths.
After a good while we reached Doreen falls which was a sweet little waterfall tucked into rain forest vegetation. It also has a little pool in there, so you could easily go for a swim in there
While I had intented to go swimming because of the heat there was also the time factor going on (and walking with wet clothes really just sucks), so we decided to pack it up and get going back.
Mean while the sun had started to set a bit already but there was still enough time to take in some good sceneries.
The golden hour was in full blast and that gave a whole new perception to these mountains again as if they were new.
After getting back into the civil world at the end of the hike for some reason we had to walk through a field entirely filled with horses. Now I am not scared of horses, but uhhh.. a whole field?
Not easy to take an option not walking behind them if there are so many
Shorter hikes like these are nice if you ask me. There was also a hike to Cathedral peak itself which took about 12 hours and had you starting before dusk.
I will leave that to the pros I suppose and keep it to small little waterfalls myself