Mnweni Fire

Hi

Just thought I would share my experience of Mnweni this last weekend.

I walked the following route starting on Saturday 21st

From Mnweni visitors centre, heading towards Mnweni pass, spending the night at Shepards cave.
heading up the Mweni river we encountered quite a few local guys heading up towards the cutback, most with hunting dogs, apparently there were about 20 guys up there doing some hunting, they said they would be heading back at about 4pm.

We arrived at the cave at about 1 30 pm and noticed large parts of the lower cutback ablaze, the guys seemed to have set the velt alight to flush out the wildlife.

At about 4 15, we saw the first of the guys heading back down the river, and this is were things go pear shaped, as they went down the valley they set the velt alight, literally 200m from Shepards cave, with the wind pumping and the grass about 1,5m high, we had a bit of a problem, by this stage they had set the velt above us, in front of us and below us alight, we were pretty much trapped in Shepards cave, within minutes the fire reached the cave, we just had to sit tight, and try prevent our stuff catching fire from all the ash. We were lucky to get away with only minor equipment damage, and even luckier we weren't camping in the velt.

So be very aware of velt fires in the berg, especialy in the Mnweni area.

The rest of the hike up Mnweni pass to Mponjwane cave and down Rockeries was absolutely fantastic, a really amazing part of the Berg!!

Something similar happened to us at Twins Cave a while ago...

www.vertical-endeavour.com/forum/14-drakensberg-general/1079-dragons-wrath-2010.html?limit=6&start=18