Climbing Mafadi |
 I deliberately put these three photographs together into one picture to accompany an article that I had published in the 2019 edition of the New Zealand Alpine Journal. In the article, I commented, “Unlike my three previous Drakensberg trips in the early 1960s, when the best views had without exception been from the tops of the mountains, my most memorable views in 2019 were looking back up at the mountains.” The three panoramic views looking back up at the Drakensberg escarpment were taken before, during, and after sunrise on Wednesday, 25 September 2019, at 5:45 am, 5:50 am, and 6:35 am respectively. The Injisuthi Buttresses (3,202 metres / 10,505 feet and 3,212 metres / 10,538 feet) are in the centre of each panorama; the Triplets (2,946 metres / 9,665 feet, 3,150 metres / 10,334 feet, and 3,190 metres / 10,466 feet) dominate the left-hand skyline; and the Molar (3,045 metres / 9,990 feet) and the Ape (3,044 metres / 9,987 feet) can be seen near the right-hand edge of each picture. |