The story of paying with the Giants' fire

Let me tell you a story, a magical story.
It is the story of two crazy yet sain men who started playing with the Giants' Fire. In this story, there is an adventure, wonder, and basking in the glory that God has given us.
Party members: David van der Veen, Jonathan Newman, Giants Caste and Fire.
On Friday 14 June Jonathan and I loaded our 4 sparse but heavy packs into his car for our journey Giants Castle Nature Reserve for a 4-day jam-packed climbing adventure of a lifetime. The fun started when we were 20km outside of parks board wilderness when a lousy driver from the province of Gold decided that instead of slowing down when he missed his turn off an emergency hand break turn was in order. Thank goodness we managed to avoid the first of many incidents.
Friday: 9km Giants Carpark to Contour Path camp 
We arrived fashionably late to the offices as the had already cashed up but not yet closed the doors to the curio shop, so with the promise of mountain permits on our return we headed off into the evening wilderness with high spirits and heavy packs fueled with hiking, climbing gear, and some food.
About 45min into the hike to the first campsite at the Contour path, when the sun set as in most circumstances one would stop and take out a headlamp but us as it was almost a full moon, so onward and upward in the shadow of the moon. Whilst we were doing this we came across a rather large herd of Eland and as it was not daytime one can only speculate the size of the herd, as for the rest of the 9km was uneventful until we pitched camp at 9 pm.
Saturday: Contour Path Camp to Giants Pass Camp via Giants Castle Peak (Sherman's route - two pitch Trad Climbing[E] and rock bands [D]).
As per usual with a long day, you start in the dark and finish in the dark. it was a long day out 14hrs give or take from camp to camp and to only do 15km worth of distance. But wow what a day, spectacular sunrise, a hard slog up to the first pitch over very unstable ground that threatened to slide from underfoot. Once at the first pitch [E] of Sherman's route up Giants Castle, you look up and it is rather deceptive, at first glance you think 5m or 6m easy climbing. So we roped up after making sure that it was the correct pitch, Jonathan lead it fairly easily and I did a quick and comfortable second. As it was my first Drakensberg climb the first thing I realized is that chimney climbing in the berg is filthy work and one gets covered in muck, after that my ego may have risen to proportionate hights. 
"The mountains give and they take and never ever have an Ego" We edged around the sheer cliffs of Giants ridge to the 6 to 7m high slab that is pitch 2 [E], pitch 2 is a friction slab with very little gear placements and laybacking to the left with dodgy gear placements, the crux is a 1m block that you need to pull up with no safe foot placements  and bad rock handholds. This is where my 'ego' took a beating as I looked at it and thought this will be fun and took lead, there are multiple factors that I did not weigh in and they are listed in order, 
-The fear of falling on dodgy gear meaning that if I fell my 2 of my 3 gear placements 70% chance that they would have popped and the nut would have held but that was 2m up the climb. If the nut had popped there was a possibility I could have rolled down the slab and gone over the cliff but if that had happened Jonathan would have followed me until he reached the end of his tether which was 2 to 3m long. that is enough what if's and it was not the case but it was what was running through my head and hindering me from completing the move in a faster time.
-I was parched, when you are on a friction slab there is not much leeway for error and drinking can cause a mistake.
-Not realizing the power of grass for rock climbing in the mountains, when most people who climb in the berg talk about Drakensberg rock it is often likened to Weet-bix.
-Finally, I  went in with my only training on Sandstone, not Basalt which has a very different rock structure.
So, in order for me to complete the crux, I had to put my faith in God and trust that he will protect me and make the move 'No fear as it is the hindrance that shall cause one's doom'. Once that was over it was time for me to do the last scramble and tie in at the chains at the top of the pitch and be horrified that Jonathan made it to the top in one-tenth of the time it took me to make it up. Now for the rest of the ascent up Giants Castle and that involved spectacular views of the lower berg and into Lesotho and 150m of D Grade scrambles on narrow ridges and vegetated rock bands. We finally reached the last scramble that involved a slightly technical scramble to the Summit and just wow the exhilaration of summiting Giants Castle for the first time and sending my first ever Drakensberg Rock climb.
Now for the final part of the day that involved about 5km of hiking through Ice bands, rough terrain and a lose eroded, rocky and rough grass bands to and down Giants pass to the packs which we had stashed in one of the rock clusters in a dry stream. Once at the packs, it was time to get the headlamps out, pack our climbing gear into our overnight packs and hike 5km to the night's campsite, which included a chat with the guys tenting at the bottom of the Giants pass. When we were at the 2nd river crossing from the bottom of the pass we stopped for a break that entailed a serious discussion,  half a fruit roll, and a water refill as we each had 1,5l of water for the day. Now on to what the discussion was about, here is a little bit of a back story that I managed to neglect from the report. When we pitched camp on Friday night there was a slight orange-red glow coming from the Kambule area that had grown in size drastically over the course of the night and refused to go out during the whole of Saturday. Now back to the topic at hand both Jonathan and I had been worrying about the blaze all day and some might call it tuition but we felt God tell us not to go to the planned camp for the night but camp on the ridge that we had just past on the contour path. So we did just that, we pitched camp on the flattest spot we could find got ready for the next days' climb up Potterill arete. 
Sunday: abandoned (Climb Potterill arete and tent on the escarpment)
After a long restless night, the alarm rung at 5 am and it was time to get ready. To our dismay when we looked outside the tent our way forward was fiery red glow far down the ridgeline with tongues of flame licking the night sky. With that, we decided to wait for first light to access the situation at hand, by the time first light arrived we could see that we were in a thick haze of smoke and some falling ash and unanimously decided to call the trip and head back with a small victory but not a disaster at hand, as Jonathan stated the mountains will be there long after our time we can come back any time. Finally, with that, we headed back to Giants Castle Reception via Giants Ridge in the glorious Mountains. On the trip down we saw that the intended area where we had planned on camping was black and with a wall of smoke and fire surrounding our walk-in to Portterill and Jarding Pass. The rest passed in a blur so here is a summary, 4 Eland, lots of firefighters on Middle Ridge, long down and concrete strips for 8km. Once arriving at reception we found out that they had been fighting the blaze for 2 days and it was set by Basotho's and after signing out of the Moutain register (+-30 other idiots had added their names to our trip and decided not to start their own page and inform Parks Board where that had gone) we headed home.
For those that have come shared read this far thanks and here is some bonus content. Whilst I was stuck at the crux of pitch 2 about 3 Lamighaia and 4 Cape Vultures decided to start circling, it was both amazing and terrifying at the same time.

Looks like Dynamodave has beaten me to this one - but nonetheless, here's my writeup.
Link here

My comments on Sherman's Route:
The approach recommended in Drakensberg Select and mentioned in Serpant Spires as an alternative is great, but is a bit slow due to being loose in places. The basic line is - head up the third stream after hitting the contour path via Giants Ridge. Follow this till you reach the cliff line. Take the left facing gully to the next very loose slope, and then take another shorter left facing gully.

This will bring you to the bottom of Schole's Route and Colli. Walk left along this ledge and just around the corner you will see a fairly easy and short (relatively speaking) chimney. Climb this (graded E, lots of gear).

From here, head up to the base of the large cliff and either take the route below the massive crack system (graded D with an E exit move to get onto the ledge on the left (this is the route in Serpent Spires) or go about 30m left till you see a break in the overhanging cliff above you - and use a lot of friction climbing to get up it (graded E, the route in Drakensberg Select, and the one we used). The slab option isn't immediately obvious, it took us a few minutes to figure out where to go. From here, walk left along a sketchy ledge till it runs out at a corner. There is an easy scramble just before the corner to get onto the ridge line. Follow the top of this ridge line to the summit - about 150m above (absolutely spectacular section).

You can abseil down the route as there are chains above both pitches - but there are a lot of exposed and loose sections that I wouldn't want to downclimb, so we opted to come down Giants Pass instead.

The topo from below looks like this.


The route is exceptional in terms of position. Some of the best views I have ever experienced.

Hi Guys. Great meeting you on this epic trip!! Congrats on your safe Summit!
We also decided to evac the mountains with the fire and came down Giants Ridge a few hours after you.
Happy Hiking.
Bergbees 

Glad you guys got off the mountain safely. it was great seeing you again 

@Bergbees: Great to meet you. Always nice to see a friendly face in the mountains!

@ghaznavid, Same here! Great chatting with you both. I always hope to meet VE tribe in the berg.