Accommodation, camping & activities Barkly East, Rhodes, Lady Grey

Welcome to the home of the latest news from Wild Mountain Adventures. If you would like to comment on any of the entries we'd love to hear from you on our comments page. You can also find Wild Mountain Adventures on Facebook if you want to stay in touch that way.

MORE MAGAZINE FEATURES PUBLISHED - JULY 2010

Once again, Wild Mountain Adventures has been in the news. The July editions of Go! and Weg! magazines have written a fantastic 11 page feature about our High 5 Multi-Activity trail. We even star on the front cover! Needless to say, the phone has been busy ever since. You can read the articles and view Carlie's amazing pictures on-line:
Go! Magazine (English)
Weg! Magazine (Afrikaans)

Country Life also included us in their write-up of the Lady Grey Royal MacNab festival.

NEW - THE HIGHLANDS HIKING TRAIL LAUNCHED - FEB 2010
Wild Mountain Adventures has launched a new 3 day slackpacking trail traversing beautiful Witteberge terrain between Lady Grey and New England district. This hike is designed as a perfect long weekend getaway from city life. Three days of breathtakingly scenic hiking, carrying only your daybags. We move from beautiful river gorges surrounded by sandstone cliffs to the top of mountain peaks overlooking the Dragon's Tail. Delicious food and comfortable guest farm accommodation. The Highlands Hike can also be combined with the Wartrail Skywalk to create an unforgettable 7 day mountain trail. More about Highlands Hiking.

NEW MULTI-DAY MOUNTAIN BIKING TOURS - OCT 2009
We are pleased to be teaming up with Active Escapes to launch a series of multi-day mountain biking tours in Wild Mountain Country. Active Escapes Director Sarah Drew recently stayed with us to recce the new trails and said "The Eastern Cape's Drakensberg highlands is mountain biking mecca, and one of the best kept secrets around. We've just spent a week exploring the routes of this stunning region, and we were blown away by what exists here: amazing sandstone formations, farm tracks that go on for miles, trout-filled rivers & super-friendly locals." For more information about the slackpacking mountain bike tours contact us or call Sarah Colvin on 033 234 4367 or 084 240 7277

DRIVE OUT/WEG RY FEATURE PUBLISHED - OCT 2009

Fans of Wild Mountain Country and prospective guests may be interested in reading the lovely feature in the Oct/Nov edition of Drive Out magazine (or Weg Ry if Afrikaans is your preferred language). The piece gives an overview of the '8 Passes' challenge and is beautifully written by award-winning journalists Chris Marais and Julienne Du Toit. Chris' photographs of the area are stunning (although I can't wait for him to come back now that we've had our first summer rains and the mountains are beautiful and green again!). Links to the article:

Weg Ry Magazine (Afrikaans)

Drive Out Magazine (English)

SA RALLY CHAMPIONSHIPS - AUGUST 2009

Once again the Osram Rally came through the Eastern Cape Drakensberg and straight past Rosstrevor's driveway. This route is rated as one of the hardest in the SA Rally circuit and as usual there was plenty of excitement. Seeing the professionals drive these roads at up to 180km per hour is an amazing sight. Not to be attemped in your average bakkie!! The race has plenty of TV coverage over the next couple of weeks and I can send a viewing schedule through by email if you would like. A special word goes to the medics who stayed with us over the weekend. They work hard and party hard leaving me sorely in need of some first aid treatment to cure my babalas the next day!!

SNOW, SKIERS & VERY BIG BIRD - JULY 2009

Once again we're in the depths of winter and have had some good snowfalls this year (more due this weekend). Lately the daytimes have been lovely and sunny, but we're averaging night time temperatures of minus 10 degrees. Thank heavens for the fireplaces, electric blankets and of course our trusty Esse kitchen stove. As ever, the snowy mountains bring the skiers to Tiffindell Ski Resort and we have been booked for 6 weeks solid. Our staff were amazed by the arrival of guests in a helicopter that was so powerful the down draught clean blew the door off the barn! Tinker loves chasing birds, but even she decided that this winged creature was a bit too big and noisy and ducked for cover!

drakensberg snow drakensburg snow winter in the drakensberg

SABC VISITS WILD MOUNTAIN ADVENTURES - JULY 2009

Recently we had SABC3 coming to film a 30 minute episode of the award-winning 'Which Way' all about Wild Mountain Adventures and Rosstrevor Guest Farm. The programme involves 4 teenagers travelling around South Africa and undertaking challenges along the way, competing in teams of two.

It turned out to be an exhausting but fun day's filming. The crew started before dawn shooting scenes of the kids fascinated by the frozen bird bath and after breakfast the first challenge was for them to bottle feed the lamb and goat. At this stage both animals have been weaned off milk for about a month and their different reactions were hilarious - the goat decided all his Christmases has come and once and eagerly guzzled the bottle down. The ram turned up his nose totally and went on a hooligan mission trampling and eating the garden - should make good viewing. The kids' next challenge was to guess how many ewes were in a particular field and then herd them through a gate so that they could be counted properly. Watching these city kids running through the flock, flapping their arms and scattering sheep in all directions was good value, but eventually they got the hang of it and the winners were judged on their herding ability and nearest count. Phil and I then guided a hiking trail to the bushman paintings which included a race wading across the icy fast-flowing river (bear in mind that at the moment the water is basically melted snow!). At the Rock Art site I had to do a piece about how the San Bushmen made their paints from crushed rocks, clays, plant sap etc and what they made their 'paintbrushes' from - porcupine quills, feathers, chewed twigs etc). The kids then had to collect similar materials on the way back to the farm where they attempted to create their own Rock Art. I've attached a photo of their finished paintings - no doubt as to who the winner was!

All throughout the day Phil and I were filmed giving information about the farm and the area. Presenting is a LOT harder than it looks! Both of us have done enough public speaking in our life that we thought we'd find it quite easy, but as soon as that camera was rolling our mouths filled with cotton wool and we were stumbling over our words. By the end of the day we had relaxed a lot and felt more natural in front of the camera. I don't want to hear the words "Rolling… and Action……Nope, we need to take it AGAIN" for a long long time. And of course, we laughed when the producer said …… "And I think we'd like to have the dog, Tinker, as a theme throughout the show……" It doesn't matter how much effort Phil and I put in, Tinker always gets the best comments in the visitors book and now she's getting her own media coverage!! I've gone with the flow and now introduce her now to all guests as 'Head of Customer Hospitality and Guiding Services' and she certainly lives up to her billing. How I wish I could wake up with her boundless energy and enthusiam every morning - maybe I should go the whole hog and get her business cards printed

The show will be broadcast on SABC3 at 2pm on 24th September and then again on 7am 26th September so I'll see if I can get some video clips to entertain you with. Or then again maybe I'll just destroy all the evidence if it's too embarrassing!

child friendly accommodation barkley east

drakensberg mtb trails

drakensburg mtb trails

PUTTING THE MOUNTAIN INTO MOUNTAIN BIKING
JULY 2009

We had some very intrepid mountain bikers staying with us during July who managed to cycle many of our high altitude passes despite deep snow and muddy tracks. Anyone who has driven up or down the Carlisleshoek pass that links Rhodes and Tiffindell will remember how steep it is…. Can you imagine cycling up it without stopping once?! That is the claim to fame of Ellane Van Wyk who actually had little choice in the matter as her cleats had decided to make a permanent join to her pedals. Thankfully Ellane is a highly experienced mountain biker and has competed at the highest levels so she had the necessary skill and stamina to make the extreme climb. With her husband Ellane runs wonderful MTB trails near Wellington in the Boland (day rides and overnight trails) and hosts an annual mountain bike race. Pictures and more information about their operation you can go to www.graveltravel.co.za. Ellane sent us some wonderful photos of their time exploring the Eastern Cape Drakensberg by mountain bike although she says " We are still telling people that pics cannot show how beautiful it really is there!"

horse riding barkley east

perd ry barkley oos

MORE ADDITIONS TO THE FAMILY - JULY 2009
Three horses have arrived in the last week - all greys. Mine is a lovely safe gelding called Thuthu ('colour of smoke'). The other two horses are totally wild and until last week had never seen people before in their lives. They are a 6 year old mare and her 2 year old colt who had never been weaned as they were living alone in the mountains together. We split them up the day after they arrived and now Phil is busy training the mare who we have named Cloud. Phil is so amazing with horses and I love watching him work with them. In just 3 days he has managed to get this wild-eyed creature halter-trained, lunging, groomed, and wearing tack - which I guess means he'll be sitting on her (or trying to) very soon. We've called the colt Aragon and won't train him under saddle just yet as he is so young, but will get him used to people and being handled so that he will be well-prepared when the time comes.