One of the great cornerstones of the main wall of the Drakensberg, Cathkin Peak, stands out so prominently and dominates the entire range so completely that the Zulu have named it Mdedele – ‘make room for him’. The 3 148m high Cathkin Peak is detached from the main wall of the Drakensberg and offers mountaineers a long and challenging climb.
On the main wall of the mountain is a massive table topped height, called Champagne Castle. Two climbers took a bottle of champagne to drink on the summit but never reached there. They any way decided to drink the champagne but found that the bottle was half empty and blamed the mountain for it, thus the name.
The Monk’s Cowl forest station, high on the slopes of Cathkin Peak, is the control centre for the 40 000 hectare Cathkin Peak Forest Reserve.
