It was fine morning with the promise of being hot later. Trefor had said that we would be leaving at 9:00 but everyone was ready to get going at 8:00, a bit of a problem for us who were cut off from the action in the house. So we had a bit of a rush in the end - quite unnecessary. We got going at 8:30 and headed up the jeep track. It had been driven fairly recently for the first km but then it became very overgrown. We turned off the jeep track after about 1.5 km and then continued along a path that was well marked and had logs as steps. The path got to be very steep and even had a ladder to get past one rocky ledge. I found it quite scary and did not enjoy going down at all. Low blood sugar bugging me again! The pools are amazing, offering lovely swimming on a hot day, which it certainly was. But the water was icy cold. I could not get past waist deep, although Marianne did go in. It took her breath away. Trefor intended exploring down the kloof. It looked really hectic and we decided not to go along. One of the Voetsacer's, Kelvin, decided to join us. Going back up the path was very easy, as is always the case. At the jeep track we turned left and walked for about 1.5 km to a higher ridge. It would have been nice to go further but we had the hut keys and were concerned that Dave and Marilynn, who had gone back to do some exploring nearer the hut might get back before us. So we took a leisurely walk back getting to the hut just in time for lunch. Dave and Marilynn got back much later but Kelvin was happy to have a nap. After lunch we explored the enormous stone walled kraal and the old farm dams. An enormous amount of work had gone into what was done - hundreds of meters of dry stone walls, two dams, kilometers of water furrows and an elevated water pipeline bridging a deep kloof to get water from the high mountains. Dave and Marilynn decided to pitch their tent. Apparently the snoring in the house had been pretty intense. We were all starting to get worried about the rest of the party, but they started arriving back at about 16:30. Most had not gone much further and waited out the midday heat in the shade at the pools. Two had explored further up the kloof and walked out to round about where we stopped on the jeep track. All were pretty bushed but there were two doctors, Ailsa and Kathy and a vet, Dave, to look after them. Except for a few cramps and dehydration everyone was fine. The fire was started early and most of the party braaied. We chatted around the fire enjoying the stars but people disappeared early. We turned in at our usual 22:30.

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