IT was good to be back in the Drakensberg’s Champagne Valley, an area we are starting to know very well as we have access to a cottage there.
On this two-night visit we would be camping, though, and, with the increased mobility our camper van was giving us, we had decided on overnight stays at two different places in the valley.
We’d never stayed at Monk’s Cowl camping area but had always liked the look of it. The grassy sites are situated near the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife office at the start on most of the Monk’s Cowl trails and walks.
Although rustic campsite it offered basic but more than adequate facilities, electricity and spectacular views of the surrounding central berg mountains.
There are some lovely walks in the Monk’s Cowl area.The hike to the Sphinx rock formation, which takes us about two hours, involves quite a bit of uphill clambering, but most reasonably fit people could do it fairly easily.
There is a lovely, gentle walk to the Sterkspruit Falls and back that takes about an hour but you can walk to the falls then do a long, scenic and reasonably easy detour back to the start via Nandi Falls. It took us about two hours when we last did it.
For the adventurous and fit there is a popular hike to Blindman’s corner that we have not yet been energetic enough to try. It apparently takes about five hours.
Normally we would do quite a bit of hiking and walking when we visited the valley but on this visit our main aim was to spend as much as possible with our younger son and his family. We were looking forward to spending two days showing them the valley before they headed to Johannesburg to fly home to Australia.
We spent some time with them in the lovely gardens at the very family orientated The Nest Hotel. In recent years it has been upgraded and revamped but it has retained its friendly, rather olde worlde charms.
The valley has become quite an adventure tourism centre, offering all sorts of exciting activities like a canopy tour, horse riding, helicopter flights, not to mention the walks and hikes. However, with two small children in tow we opted for the more gentle options like strolls around the hotel grounds, sight-seeing drives and some retail therapy at the craft centres in the area.
We unfortunately didn’t have a chance to see a show at the valley’s well-known raptor centre. My two South African grandchildren have seen it and absolutely loved it. Hopefully our Australians will return to the valley some day to see it too.
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We did find time for a sundowner at the new craft brewery that has opened up in the valley. Although it was mid-winter, the evening was pleasant and warm and we sat outside on hay bales trying out the brewery’s wares.
As the sun started to go down, Bill and I said goodnight to our two sleepy grandsons and returned to our campsite for a peaceful little braai. In the morning we watched the dawn light show as the rising sun set the mountains ablaze. Camping at Monk’s Cowl had been a great experience and we’d certainly like to return there one day.
We booked in at our next port of call, the Mountain Splendour resort, where we’d spent a few days in summer last year. Being winter it was much quieter than on our previous visit but there were a few families braving the frosty weather to spend the weekend there.
It is wonderful resort with a really happy vibe and it offers magnificent views of the mountains. It is also something of a mountain biking centre, offering bikes and gear for hire and cycling and walking trails.
Our main reason for staying there, though, was that it is such a great place for children. Our grandsons thoroughly enjoyed visiting us there and were overjoyed to meet all the four-legged and feathered residents.
These included pigs (a friendly one and a bad-tempered three-legged one) horses, cows (children can help to milk Daisy), an assortment of poultry and a gaggle of delightfully friendly dogs.
The resort boasts an amazing children’s playground, which the boys loved. Unfortunately it was too cold for them to try out the artificial rock swimming pool and slide.
We spent most of the day doing laid-back touristy things with our family between the boys’ naps and then had the late afternoon and early evening with them at Mountain Splendour. We were heading home early the next morning so we said our goodbyes when they left to take the children off to bed back at their hotel.
It had been such a special evening in the mountains with our beloved Australians that we were filled with joy and saying goodbye wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Their South African visit was over and we didn’t know when we’d seen them again but as Dr Seuss wisely said: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
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