Hike up to Thomas Hut – Hexrivier Mountains – 31 Dec 2015

I greeted 2016 on the top of the Hexrivier Mountains at the Thomas Hut that belongs to the Worcester section of the Mountain Club of South Africa. Here is it on Google Maps:

Access to the hut is through the Fairy Glen Nature Reserve where we arrived at the car park just after 8am on the morning of the 31st.  Access must be pre-arranged through the Nature Reserve.  On the drive through the park we saw some wild life:

We started our hike up the mountain at 8:45am on a very hot day, around 35 degrees celcius for most of the hike. In hindsight, this was way to late and the ideal time to start would have been before 6am. Here is the route map of the just over 7km hike rising from 444m to just short of 1400m.
Thomas Hut - 31 Des 2015

Normally the hike should be taking around 3.5 – 4 hours but for us it took just short of 6 hours due to the heat and lots of stops along the way.  Our first stop was about a hour in when we found this pool for a dip.
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When we arrived at the top, we were greeted by this outside shower.  Heaven on earth to have a cool down shower with probably the most perfect view one can find anywhere in the world.
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Our home for 2 nights.
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On the morning of 2 Jan 2016 we started at 6am with our way down and was back at our car before 9am, less than 3 hours for the hike down and that included a swim in the same pool we swam in on our way up.

Here are some of the photos I took with beautifull flowers, visitors that came to visit and a view of the clouds from atop.  Enjoy and would love your comments.