This post is for the #wednesdaywalk challenge and the #makemesmile challenge collaboration. This collaboration initially took place once a month, but due to its popularity, 
If you want to know more about the rules, visit this week's post by
Our walk this last weekend did not work out as planned. The plan was to go to the "Morewood Farm and Activity Center" and walk on one of their hiking trails. But we've had quite a bit of rain here on Saturday night.
We still went there on Sunday, but they warned us that it was very wet and slippery. So we decided to keep that walk for another day.
We did spend some time there to have something to drink though, but that will be a post for this week's #marketfriday.
But I had another idea in mind. Morewood Farm is in Hillcrest and when we left home, we decided to take the "scenic route" to Hillcrest instead of traveling on the main road.
We love taking this route, but we haven't done so since the floods due to the damage and the road being closed.
We wanted to take the longer route, but it soon became clear that we would not be able to reach the top of the hill via this route.
There is normally a little stream running through the valley here, and we would cross it over a little low-water bridge. Since we have been living down here, the water was always below the road surface every time we wanted to cross here.
But now, there isn't even a bridge anymore...
As you can see, higher up the hill, there was a fire burning as well (typical for this time of year).
We turned around, deciding to still take the "scenic route", but the slightly shorter one.
With this route, we would also have to cross the "little" stream, but we decided to see if we would be able to cross it via the other route.
We took the other route and got to the stream again. I stopped on the bridge to take this photo. There was no place to pull off the road, so I stayed in the car to take this photo (downstream)...
And this one, looking upstream...a trail of devastation...
From there, we went to Morewood Farm and heard about the slippery conditions.
Thinking back about the scenes we found on Stockville road, I decided to take a detour back home, via Crestholme and Kloof. There is also a low-water bridge and some beautiful scenes of nature which we often love to visit. I wanted to see what it looked like out there.
Approaching the area I had in mind, I pulled over to take this photo as we started descending into the valley.
As we approached the final bend before we got to the river, I had to stop as another vehicle was reversing up the hill, backing up. I started to have my doubts about whether we would be able to cross to the other side.
We continued down anyway and as we got to the bottom, this was what we found.
I pulled over and got out of the car to see if it would be safe to cross to the other side.
As can be seen in the photo above, there was a lot of activity on the other side with some 4x4 vehicles and people moving around.
There were some Land Rovers parked on the other side, while the one was busy maneuvering in the bushes, closer and closer to the river, putting it's V-8 engine to good use and making some serious 4x4 maneuvers (seen in the photo below).
They were busy tying cables from the winches on these vehicles to the trees in the river, trying to remove the debris from the water...still trying to clean up after the floods. The force of the water that came through here is clearly visible.
I took a walk around the area and went down to the water to investigate and determine whether it would be safe to cross through the water to the other side.
The water was clear and it looked safe enough to cross through to the other side.
I took the next photo (from inside the car), just before crossing through the water to the other side.
Looking downstream, where all the activity is taking place.
Coming to a standstill in the water, looking upstream, everything was calm and beautiful...
Looking downstream while still being stationary in the water, told a different story.
From here, I handed the camera to my wife to capture some more shots, while I kept moving slowly towards the other side, as there was another big 4x4 vehicle approaching us from ahead and there was only space for one vehicle at a time.
As we got out of the water on the other side, my wife captured the action down below from this side...just as we passed behind the guy on the righthand side of the photo...
A couple of meters further, we were at the entrance of the Krantzkloof Nature Reserve which is situated on the banks of the little river running through the valley. It's a beautiful place with a nice camping terrain and even overnight facilities. But the reserve has been closed since the floods.
From there, we headed back home again.
So, that's it for today, folks. Thank you for reading my post!