Before I begin, I need to clarify that this post has absolutely nothing to do with cowboys – or any romantic relationships between cowboys, for that matter. The title was suggested by Duncan, and because it made me laugh, I decided to use it. Its significance will soon become clear…
Last weekend was Sarah’s birthday hike – a 3 day excursion to Suikerboschfontein in Mpumalanga, with her friends and family. After much panic about what food, shoes and backpack to take, I was finally ready, and met some of my fellow hikers at Sarah and Graham’s house in Sydenham on Friday night. We loaded our stuff into the 4 X 4’s, sorted out GPS coordinates and set off at about 18:30, arriving at Suikerboschfontein at 21:30, where we met the rest of Duncan and Luke’s family, as well as the Van Zyl’s. After a quick chat and the allocation of beds, we went to sleep, in preparation for Saturday’s hike. Unfortunately, our sleep wasn’t as peaceful as we had hoped it would be, thanks to Garrith’s phone switching itself on at 4am and his alarm going off. After much scuffling in the dark, he managed to locate it and turn it off, and everyone went back to some much needed sleep.
Everyone was up by 6:30am, making “just add hot water” oats, packing up sleeping bags and berating Garrith’s cellphone. A group of us set off at about 8am, while the rest of the hikers waited for the return of the 4 X 4’s, which had gone to drop off everyone’s stuff at the second camp site. I was in a group with Duncan, his parents (Trish and Peter), John-Mark, Jenny, Martin, Luke and his dad, Robert, and I chatted to Duncan as we walked along, taking the occasional photo and enjoying the scenery. We then dropped to the back of the group, with Luke and his dad, who were taking photos and looking at plants, and I then watched as Luke and Duncan attempted some rock-climbing on a sheer rock face, which was surprisingly successful! We met up with the rest of the group, and then split up again, with Luke, Duncan, Martin, Jenny and John-Mark opting for the complicated rock-climbing shortcut route, while I decided to follow Duncan’s parents and Luke’s dad down the less strenuous path. It was at this point that things went awry. I was stepping down onto the path when I slipped, twisted my ankle and fell sideways into a bush, flat on my back. Luckily, the sound of me falling into the bush brought Trish, Peter and Robert running back, and they quickly stepped in to help me, as Trish helped me up and Robert found me my water and took off my shoe and sock. I was sure that I was fine – aside from the feeling that I was about to faint and my throbbing ankle – and that all I needed was to sit down for 10 minutes. I then noticed that my ankle was already swollen. Robert rubbed Voltaren onto my ankle and bandaged it up (with Graham’s 3 metre long bandage), and gave me some painkillers, while everyone else debated what to do. The rest of the group had caught up to us, and everyone had stopped to see what had happened – a bit like a car crash, I suppose! It was decided that Luke, Duncan, Garrith and Peter would carry me back to the first camp site, and from there we’d decide whether I should have the ankle x-rayed. So, somewhat unceremoniously, they took turns piggy-backing me along the 3km route back to the camp (as the title of this post becomes clear!). All 4 of them were incredibly obliging, considering that they had to manoeuvre me up and down the steep hills, along very narrow paths, and I spent the journey promising to pay for their physiotherapy bills, and bake them biscuits, rusks and a gingerbread house each. Duncan’s dad was very amusing, maintaining that I had slipped and fallen because I was tired of walking and because I wanted attention from the men on the hike – I responded that this was true, and that it had worked, because I now had 3 eligible bachelors carrying me!
We made it back to the camp, and drove into Carolina (the closest town), where I was seen to by a very nice GP, who sent me to the Carolina General Hospital for x-rays. The less said about the hospital, the better – the front desk was manned by Jabba the Hut, and we were very lucky to eventually find the radiographer (who must have seriously wondered about Luke and I debating whether I was pregnant). Nonetheless, the ankle was not broken, and so the GP wrapped it up and gave me a Voltaren injection. We drove back to the second camp site, and had lunch, while the people who had finished the rest of the hike slowly made their way up the hill to the camp. Luke, Duncan and Garrith walked down to the waterfall nearby, and I spent the afternoon watching a very passionate game of Uno and retelling the morning’s events. The evening consisted of dinner (“just add hot water” noodles), joke-telling and singing and a very long conversation with Garrith about assorted sports injuries – I was pretty drugged up on painkillers by this stage, and a somewhat “captive audience” because I couldn’t walk!
Sunday morning dawned, and I discovered that, while still very swollen, I was at least able to walk on the ankle, and so I followed Luke up some rocks to take photos of the early-morning scenery. Everyone set off for the second section of the hike at various times, and eventually I was left at the camp site with Astrid – a friend of the Van Zyl’s. I was really tired of staring at the same part of the camp by this stage, and so I bandaged up my ankle, put on my shoes and went for a very slow walk around the edge of the camp site to take photos. Fortunately, there were plenty of rocks to balance on, and I took some nice photos of the scenery and just played around with different settings and angles on my camera. I spent the rest of the morning reading a book that Luke had lent me, chatting to Astrid and drinking tea. A few hours later, Duncan’s dad came to retrieve us and everyone’s luggage, and we made our way back to the base camp and then back to Johannesburg.
And that was the hike. It was a lot of fun – up until I fell down the hill. But I still had a good time, mostly thanks to Luke, Duncan, Duncan’s parents, Luke’s dad, Sarah and Graham, and I took some beautiful photos. I’m also hoping to do the entire hike sometime soon – if anyone is prepared to ever let me encounter nature ever again, based on the amount of drama that I caused on this hike! If nothing else, I have now added hiking boots to my birthday wish list!
Last weekend was Sarah’s birthday hike – a 3 day excursion to Suikerboschfontein in Mpumalanga, with her friends and family. After much panic about what food, shoes and backpack to take, I was finally ready, and met some of my fellow hikers at Sarah and Graham’s house in Sydenham on Friday night. We loaded our stuff into the 4 X 4’s, sorted out GPS coordinates and set off at about 18:30, arriving at Suikerboschfontein at 21:30, where we met the rest of Duncan and Luke’s family, as well as the Van Zyl’s. After a quick chat and the allocation of beds, we went to sleep, in preparation for Saturday’s hike. Unfortunately, our sleep wasn’t as peaceful as we had hoped it would be, thanks to Garrith’s phone switching itself on at 4am and his alarm going off. After much scuffling in the dark, he managed to locate it and turn it off, and everyone went back to some much needed sleep.
Everyone was up by 6:30am, making “just add hot water” oats, packing up sleeping bags and berating Garrith’s cellphone. A group of us set off at about 8am, while the rest of the hikers waited for the return of the 4 X 4’s, which had gone to drop off everyone’s stuff at the second camp site. I was in a group with Duncan, his parents (Trish and Peter), John-Mark, Jenny, Martin, Luke and his dad, Robert, and I chatted to Duncan as we walked along, taking the occasional photo and enjoying the scenery. We then dropped to the back of the group, with Luke and his dad, who were taking photos and looking at plants, and I then watched as Luke and Duncan attempted some rock-climbing on a sheer rock face, which was surprisingly successful! We met up with the rest of the group, and then split up again, with Luke, Duncan, Martin, Jenny and John-Mark opting for the complicated rock-climbing shortcut route, while I decided to follow Duncan’s parents and Luke’s dad down the less strenuous path. It was at this point that things went awry. I was stepping down onto the path when I slipped, twisted my ankle and fell sideways into a bush, flat on my back. Luckily, the sound of me falling into the bush brought Trish, Peter and Robert running back, and they quickly stepped in to help me, as Trish helped me up and Robert found me my water and took off my shoe and sock. I was sure that I was fine – aside from the feeling that I was about to faint and my throbbing ankle – and that all I needed was to sit down for 10 minutes. I then noticed that my ankle was already swollen. Robert rubbed Voltaren onto my ankle and bandaged it up (with Graham’s 3 metre long bandage), and gave me some painkillers, while everyone else debated what to do. The rest of the group had caught up to us, and everyone had stopped to see what had happened – a bit like a car crash, I suppose! It was decided that Luke, Duncan, Garrith and Peter would carry me back to the first camp site, and from there we’d decide whether I should have the ankle x-rayed. So, somewhat unceremoniously, they took turns piggy-backing me along the 3km route back to the camp (as the title of this post becomes clear!). All 4 of them were incredibly obliging, considering that they had to manoeuvre me up and down the steep hills, along very narrow paths, and I spent the journey promising to pay for their physiotherapy bills, and bake them biscuits, rusks and a gingerbread house each. Duncan’s dad was very amusing, maintaining that I had slipped and fallen because I was tired of walking and because I wanted attention from the men on the hike – I responded that this was true, and that it had worked, because I now had 3 eligible bachelors carrying me!
We made it back to the camp, and drove into Carolina (the closest town), where I was seen to by a very nice GP, who sent me to the Carolina General Hospital for x-rays. The less said about the hospital, the better – the front desk was manned by Jabba the Hut, and we were very lucky to eventually find the radiographer (who must have seriously wondered about Luke and I debating whether I was pregnant). Nonetheless, the ankle was not broken, and so the GP wrapped it up and gave me a Voltaren injection. We drove back to the second camp site, and had lunch, while the people who had finished the rest of the hike slowly made their way up the hill to the camp. Luke, Duncan and Garrith walked down to the waterfall nearby, and I spent the afternoon watching a very passionate game of Uno and retelling the morning’s events. The evening consisted of dinner (“just add hot water” noodles), joke-telling and singing and a very long conversation with Garrith about assorted sports injuries – I was pretty drugged up on painkillers by this stage, and a somewhat “captive audience” because I couldn’t walk!
Sunday morning dawned, and I discovered that, while still very swollen, I was at least able to walk on the ankle, and so I followed Luke up some rocks to take photos of the early-morning scenery. Everyone set off for the second section of the hike at various times, and eventually I was left at the camp site with Astrid – a friend of the Van Zyl’s. I was really tired of staring at the same part of the camp by this stage, and so I bandaged up my ankle, put on my shoes and went for a very slow walk around the edge of the camp site to take photos. Fortunately, there were plenty of rocks to balance on, and I took some nice photos of the scenery and just played around with different settings and angles on my camera. I spent the rest of the morning reading a book that Luke had lent me, chatting to Astrid and drinking tea. A few hours later, Duncan’s dad came to retrieve us and everyone’s luggage, and we made our way back to the base camp and then back to Johannesburg.
And that was the hike. It was a lot of fun – up until I fell down the hill. But I still had a good time, mostly thanks to Luke, Duncan, Duncan’s parents, Luke’s dad, Sarah and Graham, and I took some beautiful photos. I’m also hoping to do the entire hike sometime soon – if anyone is prepared to ever let me encounter nature ever again, based on the amount of drama that I caused on this hike! If nothing else, I have now added hiking boots to my birthday wish list!
