UK NEWS

ELDERLY SCOTS WALKER MISSING IN SOUTH AFRICA

The Drakensberg Mountains

Wednesday February 6,2008

By Brian Swanson

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Fears were growing last night for the safety of a Scottish hillwalker lost in the middle of a South African mountain range.

Experienced Munro bagger Michael Hetherington, 73, from Lossiemouth, in Moray, disappeared while walking in the Drakensberg Mountains.

A massive search and rescue operation involving mountain rescue teams, local police, search dogs and a small helicopter has been launched in the popular tourist spot in the east of the country.

Friends said the former classics master at an English public school, was an experienced hill walker who spent up to six weeks at a time in South Africa every year climbing and visiting relatives.

The bachelor arrived in the country a little over three weeks ago accompanied by his sister to visit their brother.

He was last seen on Saturday looking for directions to 10,000ft high mountain called Cathedral Peak.

We hope and pray that he will be found safely

Rev Graham Crawford

The area was hit by torrential rain on Friday followed by extremely hot weather.

Mr Hetherington had checked into the Didima Camp near the mountain on Friday afternoon where he signed the rescue register. This is a record that climbers sign, giving details of their walking plans as a precaution.

The alarm was raised yesterday when the elderly hillwalker failed to return.

Rescue organiser Andy Wood, of the Mountain Club of South Africa, said: "We searched all the likely spots.

"Tomorrow we are going to throw the net wider, and we will search the less well-trodden paths.

"He hasn’t given us any indication of where he intended to go.

"It would’ve been nice to get a map with a dotted line on it, but in these situations you rarely get that."

Mr Wood said a group of hikers reported coming across an elderly man, believed to be Mr Hetherington, who was asking for directions to the peak.

His car was found in the car park of the Cathedral Park Hotel, at the base of the peak.

The search was about to be called off for the day as night fell but is expected to resume at first light today.

In Lossiemouth friends said that Mr Hetherington returned to the area about nine years ago and moved into a cottage which his family had owned for years.

He is a keen golfer and regularly umpired cricket matches at nearby Gordonstoun.

The Rev Graham Crawford, of St James Church of Scotland, where Mr Hetherington is an elder, said: "Michael is a very active member not only of the church but of the wider community and spends at least one day a week delivering meals on wheels.

"We hope and pray that he will be found safely."