"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
Seven
Days Before the World Began Again
Solo
Tales from the Berg
Some
journeys begin the moment your boots hit the trail. Others
start long before — in the quiet decision to walk away from noise and into
yourself. This was one of those journeys.
Day One
rose cool and pale, the Drakensberg still stretching its back from the night.
The first climb was steady, familiar, like greeting an old friend whose moods
you already understand. The world behind you shrank with every step; the world
ahead opened like a long-hidden door.
By midday
you were high enough to feel the silence change texture — thinner, sharper,
cleaner. You stopped beside a stream, cupped your hands, drank cold water that
tasted like stone and sky. And for the first time in months, the chatter in
your head took a breath and sat still.
Day
Two was the day of the cliffs — those massive walls
that look like they could rise up and walk away if they wanted to. You crossed
the ridgelines slowly, deliberately, knowing that these places demand respect,
not speed. The clouds were low and fast, brushing over you like passing ghosts.
You spoke to them anyway. No witnesses but the wind.
By Day
Three, the wildness had properly settled into your bones. You dropped into a
valley of long grass and river braids — water curling and unfolding like silver
rope. You spent the morning tracing the river upstream, stepping through cold
pools, watching the sun flare on every ripple. You could swear the mountains
were watching you back, pleased that someone had arrived without asking them to
be anything other than exactly what they were.
On Day
Four, the world turned bright, brutal, magnificent. The trail climbed steeply
through boulder fields where time had no meaning. Every stone carried the
weight of millennia; every step carried the weight you were slowly learning to
put down. That night you camped high — just you, the wind, and a sky so crowded
with stars it felt like the universe had gathered close to hear your thoughts.
Day
Five felt like stepping into a cathedral carved by
weather. You walked through shadowed valleys, cliffs towering above you like
ancient pillars. A single sunbeam broke through the mist and landed at your
feet — a quiet blessing, or a warning, or maybe simply the mountain saying:
You’re exactly where you should be.
On Day
Six you began the long traverse homeward. Your legs were tired, your shoulders
sore, but your spirit? Lighter than it had been in years. You realized then
that solitude isn’t the absence of people — it’s the presence of yourself. The
version you forget when life gets loud.
Day
Seven brought the final descent — grasslands giving way
to paths, paths giving way to the faint suggestion of the world below. You
looked back only once. The peaks stood silent, unchanged, yet somehow you knew
they would never look the same again.
Out here,
you didn’t escape life.
You found the part of it that still remembers how to breathe.
We as hikers, explorers, and adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses.
Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!
The End.
Safe Hiking.
References and Acknowledgements
Photos – Willem Pelser
Written and Compiled by Willem Pelser
