She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes...

A while ago I was invited by some friends to join them on a mountainous venture - the ascent of Simonsberg Mountain near Stellenbosch. Being afraid of heights, I decided to conquer my fears.

We ended up taking the "non-commercial" route up by accident, so weren't able to reach the beacon demarkating the highest point of the mountain (we topped a secondary peak, the broad one in the middle, with a serious ravine between us & the beacon). The undisturbed nature was so simple & rugged, yet so beautiful. All around we saw little mountains streams or just little waterfalls of randomly trickling water, feeding ferns & moss. Water erosion made for lovely patterns in the rocks and here and there a tree managed to dig it's roots deep enough to survive the wind.

The last bit of our route involved much climbing (try ascending a nearly-vertical rock face with nothing but a downward slope & dead drop behind you). I was seriously grateful for my previous climbing practice. Of course I was shitting myself every inch of the way, but with Stefan (ze german) calling me from the front and Adriaan (old buddy) blocking my retreat back down, I made it up. Adriaan is probably just as unhappy about heights as I am, and he had the misfortune of receiving a phone call whilst climbing up the rock face - a friend asking him what he thought of a movie. Adriaan calmly replied "Um, this isn't a good time...".

After a good 3 hour hike and another half-hour of tricky climbing, we had lunch near the top of our peak. It was so extremely quiet up there, and the view so mind-boggling, that the guys felt a need to get rather philosophical. The way down wasn't much easier, but did involve me landing on my ass in the river and Stefan kissing a tree.

It was an awesome experience, and one I remember everytime I look up at one of the biggest-looking mountains in the vicinity of Stellenbosch. I came, I saw, I had lunch on top of a magnificent age-old pile of rock.