Arrival & My First Day

From the time Bill picked me up until the time I saw Michael in Jo'Burg was 37 hours. Now that is some travel time! Michael and I met with no problem and as we headed out from the airport he mentioned something about our slick set of wheels. It seems that Michael conned his Pop into handing over the keys to his truck.


It'll do but we need to contend with a broken window crank, vinyl seats that get hot enough to cook on and its need for new shocks. Looking clean here but not staying that way, yesterday someone scrawled a message thru the dust on the rear window that read "I wish my chick was this dirty".

We decided that I spent enough time traveling so we'd best get to it and made our first stop at the Cedarberg crag in Magaliesberg. On the way we dropped into a small farm called Tree Tops. Michael reckons it's been there for about 50-60 years providing locals with natural jams, veggie's, etc and a great fermented ginger beer of which we chugged a couple of bottles. As you can see from the image, it was a real simple operation with a small store and the growing fields on either side but I was glad we stopped and supported these locals.



Magaliesberg is a protected area and Michael had spent a great deal of his youth in this area. He said its amazing to come back to a place that is so timeless, "it just seems like this place never ages". The approach trail runs through some amazing terrain, which is made up of grottos and canyons carved by millions of years of flowing water. Rock so hard yields to the relentless flow of soft persistent water. After about 30 minutes of approach we reached Frog Gulley and the sight of our 3 pitch route called Boggle. Michael made it clear that this is the classic to do in Cedarberg. A straightforward first pitch leads to a second pitch which has a great traverse with plenty of exposure over the gorge. The last pitch is a wonderful rightward trending and slightly over hanging crack.

After climbing we headed for Michael's parent's home. They live in a place called Kosmos which lies just below a huge cliff band and just above a lake. The setting looks like something out of the south coast of France. As soon as Michael showed me my room, I passed out. After 37 hours of travel, a 3 pitch route and 8 more hours of wake time I think I just needed some sleep.