Good Evening.
I was one of the 3 guys on the hike that was attacked recently. I firstly want to thank Stephen Richert, Conservation Mgr of RNNP, and his amazing team of rangers.You guys where nothing less than amazing, and we will forever be thankful to you and your team. And to Brenda from Witsieshoek for sending your guides to help, and for feeding us and trips to the hospital. I can tell you from the start, it was nothing like i ever experienced or would even dream of something that vicious happening to us. The 3 of us are really lucky to be alive. my friend Dave has the worse of the injuries, he is still in a very bad way, he has been taken back to hospital and from the scans they have discovered he has a depressed scull fracture and has had blurry vision in his one eye. I am still waiting to find out the full result as they are waiting for a neurosurgeon. he also has to have surgery on his left hand to fix his 3 fingers. I was hit in the head and bitten by the dogs on my back, and am now going through the rabies treatment for the next couple weeks, my other friend Cameron has massive welts all over his body with serious bruising, between the 3 of us we got hit, counting the marks over 16 times from rocks and knobkerries... Its really sad as we had been dreaming and planing this trip for a very long time and had spent lots of money on gear and food, only for it all to end on our first night..... we where lucky enough to come out with our shoes and few cloths we were able to scrounge before retreating and hiding in the mountains till first light, other than that, everything was taken.... It started off with them throwing rocks at the tents, and as we tried to come out they hit us with knobkerries, we knew we had to get out of the tent as the rocks started coming through, so we rushed them which pushed them back for a bit but then the rock throwing became unreal, they had clearly collected rocks before they attacked as they came faster than pullets. they kept coming closer and the dogs had surrounded us and kept on trying to bite us, after going down from a hit one of the dogs ran up and bit me on my back. Dave managed to pepper spray on of the one guys and the dog, but not without taking a rock and knobkerrie to his head, we kept shouting why and to please stop, all they said was, money. after the pepper-spray we managed to get a gap and we said to each other grab what we can and get out as fast as we could. we crossed the river and walked for many hours to get away as we could still hear the dogs. i have never been so scared in all my life, i really thought we where going to lose our lives that night..... it might sound like im being over dramatic, but i can assure you it was not joke, they where ready to kill us for our stuff, and the 3 of us have no doubt of that, the striking of the knobkerries where only aimed at our heads and with some serious force behind it. Im only writing this so that its made aware of how violent they are becoming. We had 3 young basuthos asking us for money straight off the bat, as we climbed the chain ladders. I can only wish that more could be done to aid Stephan and his team. there is only so much he can do and we need to help him, this needs to be sorted out before someone is killed..... We go to the mountains to get away from the crazy lives we have to live already, but this now too has been taken away from us, i cant see us attempting the Grand Traverse anytime soon, dont like the fact that we now have to worry about our lives when trying to be out in those beautiful mountains..... When we walked back to the car park with the rangers, we came across a family with 2 young kids out for a over night, which is great to see, but after those parents had seen us come down full of blood and bashed up, i dont think they will be doing that again.... this is truly sad.. Stephen i wish you all the best and i cant thank you enough for your guys efforts. We will be happy to assist and do what ever we can to make it safer for everyone to enjoy those mountain. I hope someday we can attempt this amazing trip again, but until i hear from Stephan that he is getting the help and support he needs, think ill stick to day hikes....Thanks again to all.
Regards Jody Main-Baillie. Cameron McLean and Dave Moldenhauer
Im sure Dave and Cameron will have a little say as well. Just so we can get more awareness on this issues Stephan is faced with.
Jody MB
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Wir waren auch schon in diesem Gebiet zum Wandern. Das es aber in den letzten Jahren so eskaliert wussten wir nicht.
Grüße Mutsel
