Glen Reenen Rest Camp
Golden Gate Highlands National Park
The Glen Reenen Rest Camp is another of South Africa National Parks properties. We had pre booked a 2 sleeper Longdawel which is a detatched traditional style thatched cottage with double bed, kitchen and bathroom facilities and a barbeque area. Our first afternoon we had driven up from Thendele Camp and after checking in we went off to see the Golden Gate Vulture hide. This was only a ten minute drive from the Glen Reenen camp and is part of the South African Vulture feeding project. The hide itself is a large brick building with seating inside just off the Oribi Loop road about 100m form a small car park. There are signs that asks visitors for silence and to keep from walking in front of the building. Once inside there is a large seating bench and you get to look out on a large grassland area with mountains for a back drop, but what immediately grabbed our attention was the large carcass of a dead cow right next to the half eaten carcass of a zebra placed there to feed the vultures, both of these were in amongst a large amount of scattered bones of what were clearly previous meals.
That evening we returned to the Glen Reenen Rest Camp, but couldn't quite believe how cold it was, but at over 2100m in altitude the nights were very cold, to the point that the beds had electric heater blankets fitted. In the morning there was a light frost covering on the ground outside, so we had breakfast early and set off to climb the Chain Ladder Route up onto the Drakensberg Amphitheatre Plateau. When we got to the Sentinel peak car park it was obvious that the weather was way to bad to go up, so we decided to returned the Golden Gate Highland National Park.
As the weather started to clear on the way back we decided to stop at the Golden Gate Hotel and chalets where visitors are allowed to park as a day walkers for the Holkrans Trail. This is a small trail that allows you to explore some large sandstone caves. We set out across the grassy slopes below sandstone cliffs to our left and then continued on the path until we turned up to a wooden ladder with rope hand rail. As we got to the top of the ladder the path took us along a few wooden walkways and into a series of large open caves that have some amazing patterns that have formed by the weather over the years
The caves and were really interesting and the walkways a bit of fun as they were quite rickety. As we got through the caves the path dropped us back down to the grassy slopes below the cliffs and then returned us back to the car park. After the Holkrans trail we went back to the Vulture feeding project viewing hide and sat there for several rewarding hours until the sun began to set. We saw the vultures circling and landing on the carcasses, but we also saw Zebra, Antelope and even saw a few Jackal in the distance. From here we returned to the Glen Reenen Rest Camp for the night, then the following morning after checking out we to set off again to walk up the chain ladder hike and over to the Sentinel Peak. This day the weather was perfect! Check out his hike on the previous page or by following this link https://under-one-sun.co.uk/chain-ladder#chain-ladder