The fairy forest: Day 10-11



The walk down to The Edge.

After stocking up on essentials (food and fuel) in Grahamstown, we navigated our way towards the beautiful Amatola Mountain Range, driving up to the secluded little mountain village of Hogsback. It’s not hard to believe that this strangely captivating place is said to be J.R Tolkein’s inspiration for his famous novel, The Lord of the Rings.



Creepy crawlies in the forest.

We drove down the one street in Hogsback and stumbled upon The Edge – a lodge and restaurant ‘on the edge’ of a cliff with views that are the perfect backdrop for cheesy couples photos (which we took, of course). The boys were starving, again, and so we indulged in some home-made boerie rolls and “South Africa’s Best Carrot Cake”.



The roof top tent.

We then hunted down the cheapest accommodation in town, and ended up at ‘Away With The Fairies’ – a typical hippy joint, where we set up camp for the first time – Nikki and Tom in their rooftop tent, and Robbie and I in our 4-man dome tent. Robbie also lured me up a 15m high tree-house with the promise of a beautiful sunset…I almost passed out as my fear of heights kicked in!



You haven’t quite experienced Hogsback until you have gone for a hike…and got lost. Following a hand-drawn squiggle of a map, our hour and a half hike turned into a 4 hour mission to find the Big Tree. After the boys lead us astray numerous times bundu-bashing through massive spider webs, we did eventually find the Tree…3 times. Nikki kept running ahead shouting, “Here it is guys!...Oh no hang on, I think this is it!” to every exceptionally tall-looking tree. Finally we came face to face with the 38m high Yellowwood, took only a moment to soak it in, and then set off again, as the novelty wore off pretty quickly due to the tedious walk.



Tom's Old Man's Beard.

Home bound, we heard the rushing water from a while away, and as we got closer we discovered a refreshing surprise and forgot all about our aching legs. The full and cascading Swallow Tail Waterfall was truly spectacular (especially the quick secret skinny-dip I enjoyed in the freezing water!).

After the magical mountain trek, we showered and packed up camp, and were actually looking forward to sitting down for the next leg of The Journey.