Cederberg, Western Cape, South Africa

25/04/11

I’m sitting in the shade of a pecan nut tree, with a fire slowly burning inside a rocky circle. There are mountains to my right, left, in front and to the back of me and a leisurely breeze carries the smoke away from me. It is midday and my sister is on lunch duty. My leg muscles are cramping and my knees, which have been starting to act up for the first time last year on a strenuous photo trip inside the Knysna woods, is drumming a steady beat. Today, we are enjoying a well deserved rest. We did the BIG hike up Wolfberg yesterday with me lugging 8kg of camera gear on my back up a mountain that is 1900m high, to shoot the Wolfberg Cracks. Was it worth it, for sure! Like Janice said: ‘It was exhilarating and frightening and there was times that I really felt like my life was in danger, but it was the best thing I have ever done ’. Amen to that!


I came to the Cederberg to add new images to my portfolio; my sister Mari, who usually accompanies me on photo shoots away from home, and friend Janice, joined in for the experience. Boy! Did they get an experience....
We are booked in at the Oasis, a beautiful quaint little guest farm situated close to Truitjieskraal. Gerrit, the owner, has been an absolute star by giving us directions and drawing us maps to the best places to visit. We even had an impromptu astronomy lesson one night, sitting in front of the old farmhouse and gazing into the stars, while he tells us tales about the Cederberg’s history and galaxies far away. His wife, Chantal, runs the restaurant and by her own admission, has never been on a hike, even though Gerrit is an avid hiker. ‘She’s happy in her restaurant and does what she loves to do’ he says. If you ever come this way, do not pass them without stopping for a cool beer or better still, stay the night to listen to Gerrit’s tales of the area. You cannot miss the Oasis’s big yellow smiley faces next to the road.
My days as a landscape photographer starts early, long before sunrise, and ends late, long after the sun has set. In between I scout the surrounding area for possible places to return to with sunsets and –rises. That means a LOT of hiking and my two companions needs to keep up with my erratic walking, mostly in the footpaths but many times up and under rocks and through brush to get a bird’s eye view of the landscape. We chat and gossip and laugh a lot and make jokes at each others expense and at night we fall into bed, dazed by fatigue.
Our first day here Gerrit send us to Truitjieskraal, telling tales of beautiful rock formations and changing landscapes as you walk underneath. I listened with glistening eyes, imagining the images I was going to shoot, but never imaging that I would be making Truitjieskraal my base for the five days we are staying in the Cederberg. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen and no words or photos can do it justice.




The second days’ stop was the Stadsaal caves. Impossible rock formations formed by millions of years of wind, rain and time. Huge boulders were standing on pillars of sandstone, balancing on smaller rocks.
We snapped photo’s like regular tourists of the caves and the Bushmen drawings and on the way back Janice noticed an interesting crevice in one of the smaller side caves. Beautiful white sandstone mingling with yellow and orange stone, tunneling into the cave walls; just my kind of setting for a good picture. Well spotted Janice! It helps having extra pairs of eyes on shoots!


By the end of the second day we felt we were well prepared for the big climb up Wolfberg the next day. Once again Gerrit charmed us with his stories and drew us three A4 maps full of directions on how to navigate the cracks inside the mountain top to get to the one place where I planned to shoot. His maps basically consisted of drawings of rocks and ledges that we had to climb over and under in order to reach the one crevice deep inside the mountain. Without these directions, we would not have been able to reach this crevice as there is only one way in and out, and it is a tricky, difficult and scary way for an amateur climber. Lucky for him, he left for town right after our talks; I think Mari and Janice would have strangled him afterward for making the climb seem like a leisurely walk up a hill.
My writing skill are not good enough to explain the various difficulties we went through in order to reach the crack’s inside, but it basically consisted of crawling into dark crevasses and feeling for handholds to draw yourself up, over and under fallen rocks and through oppressing walls that hugs your body on two sides while you try not to get stuck. Backpacks were handed on from the back to the front to enable our bodies to navigate the small cracks that led to the bigger cracks.
We were very fortunate to meet a retired American firefighter, who also specialized in mountain rescues - Larry, on the mountain who led the way and helped us to stay sane while we crawled deeper and deeper into the mountain. Mari and Janice probably felt we needed rescue at that stage!
Larry giving me a hand up over a rock.
As we crawled over another big rock, we were suddenly bathed in a pinkish red color and I realized that we have reached our destination. It was breathtaking. From side to side it was probably not any bigger than 15 meter and in the middle was an arch of rock that stretched over our heads like a huge walkway (approx. 20m in length) coming back down to earth on a huge pillar and once again reaching back into the sky and again back down to earth to create a rough ‘m’. The sun reflected of the pink, yellow and red sandstone walls on both sides to light up the inside. Thanks to Gerrit's advice, we planned our trip to coincide with midday in order to see this beautiful sunlight which only reaches in once a day.


I busied myself with my camera while the rest of the crew got a well deserved rest before we headed back down to civilization.
We met up later that evening again with Larry and talked like old friends late into the night. He shared with us the news that his GPS has tracked our walk up and down the mountain and it came to a staggering 12km's!
Larry busy with his GPS on top of the mountain.
We have already decided, coming down the mountain to take it slow the next day and this is where I am writing from now, lazing about in the shade. We are returning to Truitjieskraal later tonight for the sunset shoot and then I want to stay on until the moon lights up the rock formations to do some night shooting. It should be interesting.