Photographing The Drakensberg Mountains

Sunrise from the vantage point of the Amphitheatre looking east towards The Eastern Buttress and Devel's Tooth.

There’s a stillness to the air, a faint feeling of crisp cold nipping at the skin and fingertips, like a tingling electricity. Silence reigns apart from the whisper of wind as it entices the grass to swish and sway with its breath. The yellow and pale green stalks rustling and leaning out over a vertical and disappearing drop to the waterfalls and rivers far, far, far below. Clouds form and dissipate, curling round the lower hills and their valleys, stretching out and exploring the canyons and forests of the lower mountains. This is the stillness and quiet before the sun peaks it’s burning orange face over the distant horizon in the east. There’s light enough that everything is awash in the magenta and pink glow of pre-dawn. The shadows may be a cool blue, but the sky is starting to ember. Then it appears. A burnt red glows at the top of the taller peaks and ever so gradually washes down the side of the mountains’ tallest heights. Alpine glow paints an extraordinary palette of saturated colour down the flanks of the escarpment. Dawn has come.

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