Chasing white stuff on a dark Continent

Down here in the southern parts of Africa we have a lot of stuff. Sunshine, stunning weather, awesome scenery, tasty food to name a few. One thing we don't get a lot of is when moisture in the air condenses on dust particles and freeze to form the white stuff that is better known as snow. As a paraglider pilot I constantly hover over weather prediction maps and in winter time when predictions like this appear:

Picture Source: wxmaps.org

It leads to more mountain weather research:

Picture Source: snow-forecast.com

And in the blink of an eye everything turned into GO-GO mode!

Living in the northern parts of South Africa, it meant we needed to go South, approximately 1500km South to were the elusive white stuff will appear in 72h.

But we only got halfway when we soon realized that weather will be weather and the white stuff are sending us on a wild goose chase! So we made a sharp left turn and headed east. Only saw glimpses of white in the distance before night caught up with us and we decided to call it quits for the day with happy thoughts knowing the direction of travel was correct.. for now. The next day we continued on our mission east, soon discovering that we are only shadowing the snow. So we hatched a hypothesis that right is wrong and left is right so we again made a sharp left turn and headed to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho!

With passports stamped we headed straight for the biggest baddest mountains we could find. No more elusive white stuff, it need to get real white stuff now!

Traveling on broken roads and bridges are typical rural Africa. But it will make some pretty pictures if you know where to look.

Soon we were in heaven, at least we thought so!

Local Basotho huts

Mixing some fog in with the snow makes for eerie trees. Could things get any better??

Only if you make it better! Snow ball fights and jumping lessons.

Time was running out as our trusted steed could not handle ice on the road that were bound to start as soon as night close in, fuel was also running low so we turned back for South Africa. But we had no plans on heading home, we were in the mountains and happy!

Back in South Africa we headed further east, east is good, from where we were, the closest ocean was east.. who can guess where we were heading!?

In between the cows, small mountain villages and more eerie trees we continued to push our way east, following a dirt road, entranced by the beautiful scenery, we knowingly ignored where it was leading! Until eventually we could not ignore the brutal facts anymore...

The thin layer of ice that stopped us.. or so the white stuff thought!

At around 12h in the afternoon the snow starts to melt, but due to the cold ambient temperatures, the snow turns into ice. Not having a 4x4 or snow chains, this MIGHT be a little bit of a problem! But having done this before in much thicker snow (with a 4x4) we hatched a plan based on the sound principles of a snow dance and more power is better, we forged ahead! :)

Reaching the top was worth the effort

The clouds were rolling in and we had pushed the boundaries of our little Ford Bantam enough for one day so we headed down, as fast as possible, which wasn't very fast!

Managing to out flank and out run the coming snow fall

We camped for the night at what looked like a set from "wrong turn 2". The price of adventure I guess..

Matjiesfontein

Deep in the central Karoo there is this old railway town called Matjiesfontein. Nothing to exiting about the place and it had nothing to do with us running around chasing snow. But it was on our way home and old towns make pretty pictures. :) If you are interested in the story: Wikipedia Link

What is a successful adventure without a celebratory cup of proper coffee!

Awake and ready to rock we headed home.

Hope you enjoyed the experience as much as I did! Stay tuned for more!! Off to Namibia in 2 days time, cant wait for that.