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Showing posts with the label escarpment

In Touch

Photo by George Angus The toad beneath the harrow knows exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road preaches contentment to that toad.                                                            Rudyard Kipling I am not exaggerating when I say that every morning, when I mount my bicycle and turn onto the main dirt road that passes our house, I think of Kipling’s poem. Traveling by car you rush past landmarks and speed over bumps and stones. But with cycling it’s a different story. Very early in the morning, with the sun just above the horizon, some of the bigger stones in the road even cast shadows.  The section next to the camp of the cows with their calves is particularly rough. The slope leading down to the dams where Sebastien does bass fishing has about a 100 metres of hard, smooth...

Over the edge and back

Going to the mountains is going home.                                                                        John Muir We live right on the edge of the escarpment in the Balele Mountains which is part of the larger Drakensberg mountain range. Just a few kilometres south of us you have a spectacular view over the plains of Kwazulu-Natal down below before you start your steep descent. Going to Newcastle is in many ways a mysterious mixture of geography and spirituality. Changing over from life on the farm to that in a big and vibrant town. And being able to see this whole transition process in both directions as you are busy doing it. We leave home and within a few minutes literally step over the edge to this town on the vast plain down below, visible from kilometres off. It is usually accom...