For some time I have been wanting to get to The Canyon at Lotheni. Its situated beneath the Ka Zwalele Ridge and is a bit off the beaten track. We set off from the office on the route above the road but took a lower path than we should have - this resulted in a lot of bundu bashing as it was extremely difficult to find the correct path - there are myriads of animal tracks all over the place and its all rather confusing. To make matters worse the official paths are very badly overgrown and the only reason we eventually found it was because we could faintly see the wooden erosion barriers. Once we reached the middle plateau the path heads off for about 4kms towards the escarpment and we managed to stay on it although it required some concentration. It seemed to fade away and from here it was a bit of guess work. We still had no visibility of the gorge and its only when you are practically on top of it that you discover this amazing feature. We went upstream of the waterfall and found a lovely spot to tent alongside the river and then walked back along the edge of the canyon to take photographs. The sides of the gorge are very steep and we realised that we would actually need a full day to find the way down and explore the gorge properly. By this time it was late afternoon and we were running out of time, so we headed back to the tent. That evening we witnessed an amazing sight - a meteor shower! I have never seen anything like this before and it was a surreal experience watching this stream of flames cross the sky in front of us. Something I feel privileged to have seen.
Rain was forecast for the next morning so we decided to head back to the office and leave the gorge for another day. I am determined to return, so its down on my list of things to do in 2022!
