Those who may have noticed - yes, blogging does require a discipline I haven't mastered yet. I should record thoughts as they occur but find myself scratching my head 4 days later to regroup my thoughts. Oh well, here goes.
Having walked most of the trails in the area many times we decided to be a bit more adventurous on Wednesday so we chose the sunken forest walk which we had last done in the 90's. It turns out that the walk isn't even on the map anymore but that didn't bother us since we knew where to go - up towards Sphinx and turn left at the Robin Hood Forest sign, then through the RHF onto a path we recalled as being rather badly defined, into the sunken forest. The sunken forest is known for the huge halleria lucida trees that grow there and they are in flower at this time of the year. Unfortunately the bad path has become a non-path and we got as far as the RHF but could not see a way into the sunken forest. After much bundu bashing we had to give up although we did get the chance to walk paths we hadn't experienced before. We joined up with the path heading to the hotel and followed it taking many detours to explore new vistas and terrains.
On the way to the hotel we walked through what were most probably commercially viable pine forests many years ago - now they are just mono culture deserts that smell quite nice. Invaders become more of a problem the closer you get to civilisation - bug weed, blue gum, wattle and of course, pines can't be excluded.
Our last full day, Thursday was spent walking all the Fernwood paths. Not much new to report, except a lovely Aloe at Dingaan's Cave and some lovely Zebra encounters.
Travelling back on Friday was great because most of the traffic was heading towards KZN for Comrades. Hardly any traffic to contend with - even back in Jozi we had a fairly free road. The next trip to Fernwood will be next year - the withdrawal begins!
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