It’s not often that I hike on a Saturday when I have so much to do but when Yvonne messaged inviting me to hike with the club (HPAC) and that Shaheen is going to be there, I dropped everything and went hiking 😀 It was graded B1 so knew we weren’t going to the top but part of the scramble route.
ICYMI – on the 21st October 2017, she fell about 40m from a ledge and had a quite a few broken bones and punctured organs. She was only discharged from hospital, 2 months later, on the 21st December. 6 months later, on the 21st April 2018, I got to hike with her again ^_^ I’ve patiently been waiting for this moment and I wasn’t going to pass it up!
We are to meet at Lion’s Head parking at 16:30 for 16:45 start and I am of course punctual as we wait on everyone to arrive. I see her, and we give each other the longest hugs! 😀
I don’t know how many pax but we started around 17:00 and up we go. Regroup when need to and of course taking photos! Especially of Shaheen since we haven’t had photos together in so long! We regroup whenever need be and taking a photo of one orange flower, Yvonne tells me that its wild ganga lol. I then check the leaves and see that it is hahahahahhaaahah!
Further up we go until the scramble turn off and up we go, taking a little break in the cave until we realized that we were running out of time to get the sunset from ‘The Spot’. Off we go, and I quickly scramble up with Shoaib not far behind. He takes a photo of me and he show me and told him oooooohhhhh! I’m going to another rock and he need to take another photo of me! 😀
Finally at ‘The Spot’ where hundreds of photos ensued of the setting sun…..of the sunset and of each other. It was great having my favourite mountain model back and made the most of it 😀
When the sun finally went down, we still had enough light to snack and relax before heading back down.
As it got dark, we put on our headlamps (those who remembered our lights of course) and we traverse along. Taahir shows us the spot where someone else fell and it didn’t look familiar. Especially when we got to Aloe Cave! I tell Taahir that I don’t remember this cave from the last time he took us up this scramble route apparently called Eastern Buttress and he replies that he didn’t take us on this route the last time but higher up hehe. Oooooh! Ok!
Photos, photos and more photos and regrouping as we take even more photos of the city lights! We traverse some more and climbing over the low wall, I realise that we are at the bottom of the chains hehe!
Regroup some more and continue down at a faster pace as its quite cold! I’m wearing my gloves too but had to take it off each time I wanted to take a photo hehe. I had to pause taking photos as I gave my phone to Shaheen’s cousin who didn’t have a torch.
Until! We see a red dot across the horizon wondering what it could be, and Rashaad whips out his phone and open the Skyview app! We were then mesmerized by what it picked up!!!!
Somewhere along the hike someone mentioned that we need to look out for scorpions and snakes once its dark and told Shoiab that I would look out for it and call him. I eventually found one and we took several photos hehe.
Can’t remember what time we were down but before departing, we greet Yvonne and Don who will be returning to the UK for 6 months. ICYMI – they were 2 of the 9 that were stabbed back in January in Silvermine Nature Reserve.
We wish them a safe trip and can’t wait for their return in October!
When I got home and had to thank Yvonne once again for inviting me on this hike and Shaheen says it best as a caption on one of her Instagram pics ‘ One of the best #sunset spots in the world has to be on #lionshead’
Until my next mountain adventure, ciao for now and thank you for reading 😊
Fats on a Mountain 
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