4:15am... One of the super keen trail runners flushes the toilet and wakes everyone up. It's been 4 months of training and building excitement for these city slicker, road running, trail newbies and so although there is a nervous tension in the group there is that pre-run urgency in the legs to get moving.

The night before the run, the runners had arrived at Giant's View Estate, the hosts of this small party of explorers, and had indulged in the customary spaghetti bolognaise and the not so customary few bottles of wine. Although the run promised to be epic, everyone still was keen to have a good time on and off the mountain passes.

We had an hour's trip to get to the start and the weather promised to add an additional epicness to the run so we started as early as we could, leaving promptly at 5am. 100% chance of predicted thunder storms and heavy rain. Plus, the local livestock were getting moving early, slowing our approach to the start.

The Northern Drakensberg in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, is known to have severe storms and many hikers have lost their lives on the escarpment. As trail leader and photographer I had also only run the pass once before, 15 years earlier, and so I was nervous taking these newbies onto the slopes, miles from help, with extreme weather expected.

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