Travelling with DieBaasMan #1: Cathedral Peak (including: 20+ Photo's)
Welcome Dear Steemit friends.
I would like to take you all on a journey to a breathtaking South African destination, in the heart of Kwa-Zulu Natal. It’s located along the Drakensberg escarpment which stretches through most of our beautiful country.
🌄 Welcome to Cathedral Peak 🌄
Cathedral Peak is a freestanding mountain, which forms part of the Drakensberg escarpment.
Short history lesson for our overseas friends. The Drakensberg Escarpment got its name from the early Dutch settlers, they called it Drakensbergen which in Afrikaans translates to "Drakensberg" and "Dragon Mountain" in English.
It is believed that the early settlers called it Drakensbergen, due to the shape of the mountain resembling the back of a dragon.
I decided to take a trip to Cathedral Peak after it was suggested to me by a few co-workers. I was a blown away by the beautiful surroundings, truly this little piece of heaven under the African skies.
The little church building is one of the many attractions you really have to admire when visiting Cathedral Peak. I love the location of this little church, as it is located between all the mountain and it made for some marvellous photos.
I took a few photos from inside the building pointing outwards from one of the bigger windows to highlight the beauty of Mother Nature.
I spent a weekend exploring all the wonderful sites and viewing as much of the area as possible. I was so star struck by the beauty of the surroundings that I had to take some more photos of accommodation with the mountains in the background.
I was so eager to capture this, that this all had to happen even before booking in and leaving my bags in my room.
The owners really prided themselves at taking good car over the gardens and upkeep of the property. This immediately caught my attention upon arrival and I admire people that look after their properties and gardens.
I am still an amateur photographer and only do it for my own entertainment, but I loved how these came out with the flowers in focus and the rest somewhat blurred. This made the flowers the centre point of these photos.
I loved the way the sunlight was reflecting on the some of the rock added with the green grassy plains surrounding it.
The best of all is, that I was able to capture all this before the sun started fading too much behind the mountains.
On Saturday morning, we woke up very early and was excited to get going, since we had a very full day planned, but first time for some more photos while we waited for breakfast time.
I caught these two walking close by to the fence of the hotel, they looked tame since they were not too worried about me taking photos of them.
I wanted to get some nicer photos of these colourful flowers now that the sun was out nicely and the lighting is a bit better. I was impressed with how these came out and that I am able to share it with you people.
They sure had a nice variety of flowers available in their garden, marigold and different coloured daisies.
I take my hat off to the owner or the care-keeper of this garden since they really take pride in what they do and they sure made some good choices with all the colours on display.
We took part in a hike up the mountain as part of the activities that are available for visitors.
The hike passes by close the Cathedral Peak Golf course. I took the time to take a photo with some of the hotel buildings in the background.
After about what felt like a two hour hike we finally reached our destination called Mushroom Rock. The name is actually quite fitting, since it does actually resembles a mushroom.
The light coloured upright rocks at the bottom being the stem of the mushroom and the grey horizontal rocks at the top being the cap of the mushroom.
The view from up here was amazing and it made all the effort and hard work hiking all this way worth it.
We found quite a bit of wild flowers and plants up there, including some pink Natal Watsonia plants like the ones featured below.
Fun fact: The Watsonia plant was named after an 18th century British botanist named Sir William Watson. There are about 52 different species in South Africa.
I do not care what certain people have to say, but with all this beauty in nature there is no way the earth and all this was just created out of an explosion millions of years ago. Beauty like this just adds more proof to a Wise and Wonderful Creator.
So comes the end of a fabulous weekend, I am glad to have taken the advice and made a plan to visit this wonderful piece of heaven in the heart of Kwa-Zulu Natal.
These last few pictures where taken while we were busy leaving for home, just to get a few mountain photos.
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!steemitworldmap -28.9476377 lat 29.20638 long Travelling with DieBaasMan #1: Cathedral Peak (including: 20+ Photo's) d3scr
Edit: All these photos was taken with a Canon EOS 7D when I visited Cathedral Peak - And uploaded to my Imgur - Cathedral Peak, Drakensberg album. Hope you enjoyed it.
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I have been looking around for honeymoon ideas.
This place looks amazing!! I will definitely have to consider it. Would it be hard to travel to ?
The road is fairly old going towards the Hotel, but was still in an acceptable condition. This was towards the end of last year, the road would definitely have to be redone at some stage, but the same can be said for most roads nowadays since road maintenance have very low priority since its taking away from the corruption funds.
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Bwahahaha ! Its so sad that the ugly truth is funny.
Ill totally check it out, its looks beautiful, I wonder how it would look now after the storms and all.
What lovely shots you have there of the bell and inner and outer horn, has changed quite a bit since our honeymoon +40 years ago @diebaasman
Never had the chapel nor golf course, I suppose a lot has changed with time. The gardens were the passion of Mrs. van der Riet the parents of William who I believe runs it now.
When we visited she was in the garden early, giving instruction to her assisting staff of what flowers would be cut for the day to prepare fresh in the dining room.
Many would hike to the top through the cabbage patch under the guidance of 'old' John who took a mirror up to the top and reflected down to the hotel. I believe he had a wonderful knack of knowing when to 'wind up' and get going, he had a built in weather detector all of his own, his son took over from him.
It's weird how things changes over time. I used to stay in Steelpoort / Burgersfort about 15 years back and it was a real shock when I went there last year. I hardly recognized the place with all the changes that took place.
I am glad to see they kept the tradition of Mrs. van der Riet alive and looked so well after the gardens. Where I stay in Empangeni it's actually sad to see how little people look after their gardens. A garden should always be the pride of your property.
Have a splendid weekend.
Awesome, I will visit the place during my December holidays :-)
You won't regret it. Hope you have an awesome experience as well.
Thanks for taking us all along with you in this piece of heaven. 😊 I really love posts like this with nature, green plains and mountains specifically. Resteemed and followed.
I really loved doing this article. Really learning a lot since joining Steemit.
Hope you had a lovely weekend so far.
Wow!!!! it looks lovely,.,.,.
What a charming sight,,,,,,,,,,
Found you on #traveldigest, following you now. Wow - what an amazing post. Safe travels!
Wow, epic post. Look like the perfect place for a trail run. Greetings from a fellow South African explorer. ;) I'm now following you.
Wow! Very beautiful journey! Nice place :) You have amazing photos! Followed
These are some incredible pictures and details! I loved your work! I hope you will continue to share more such posts in the days to come!
So beautiful! upvoted and followed.
Thank you very much. Will check out your posts as well. I love @originalworks