We gathered at the Cecilia car park in the relative dark, exchanging weather reports for the day that followed two days of rain wondering if the clouds over the slopes above would lift or not. As the final members arrived the mists lifted and blue sky indicated that there was no doubt we were on.
Our group of 8 set off at 7:40am up the stream path and as we crossed the bridge it became obvious that although rain was unlikely we were going to experience the soggy consequences of the previous days’ weather when we hit the leaf strewn and muddy ground along the stream course. We had a break on reaching the border of Kirstenbosch gardens, stripping off unnecessary warm gear to adjust to the coming Cecilia ridge ascent with the bright sun rising behind us. The presence of water was evident throughout the walk, brushing off on to clothes and shoes, streams taking over the paths and after a brief break in Ash Valley we were treated to the sight of the Woodhead dam spillway venting over the cliff into Disa gorge as we stood on the dam wall.
After a brief visit to the club hut we headed up to junction pool and lunched at 12:00pm at the top before continuing along the aqueduct across the top of Skeleton and Nursery ravines to descend via the concrete road and the path down to Cecilia ravine to arrive back at the carpark at about 15:00pm
