Hiking in Magalisberg

Last Saturday i was at home thinking of ways to make the weekend more interesting. Using the power of google i discovered the Johannesburg Hiking Club (http://jhbhiking.org.za). As i have been always a person who loves outdoors & having gone on numerous hikes in India. I took this opportunity.
THe JHK had a good concept called 'Sunday Hikes', i liked this because of the convenience of not having to plan a hike.

Sunday morning i woke up at 5:30 am... quickly packed some lunch & water for the hike in my laptop bag and headed for Joburg (160Kms) with only 1.5 hrs to meet the rendezvous, i had to step on the accelerator. After a couple of wrong turns and realigning myself to the city map i finally made it, but 10 min late. Everyone was packed and were leaving, luckly i met one of the organizer and took him along to the hiking trail. This ride was 70Kms, totaling to 230Kms even before starting the hike.



We were asked to self profile ourselves into group (Slow, Medium minus, Medium plus). Having come with the leader of Medium Plus i choose this group. Bad choice. There was a group of around 8 ppl in this group who were just looking down and clambering up the hill. Halfway up i decided to desert them and join the Medium minus, to get an opportunity to enjoy the scenery, hike peacefully and meet interesting people. This was a larger group with 22 people (70% looked like they were retired in life), whew and i thought that hiking was for the young and energetic.

I met an interesting french group (Olivier, Christine & aurelie), they were a part of the french embassy in pretoria. We spent many hours swapping notes on africa, europe, india.Politics, economics, safety, multicultural integration etc. Time flew by, we had a nice halt for some snacks and later for lunch. tried to get a power nap though, but we got moving too soon.



The terrain was constant for most part, the formation looks predominantly made of wind & water eroded sedimentary rock, interspersed with a lot of ankle to knee high grass. The bright & sunny winter day made it perfect for hiking. I had earlier zipped around these hills in a car and longed to climb it. I was happy that i had got an opportunity to explore these hills.

We finished by around 3:30 pm. And i was back home by 6:15pm.
12 Hrs - 465 kms driving, 6 hrs hiking.... A relaxing day or a hectic one ?? I am choosing the former.