Once I wrote, a bit arrogantly, that life was too short to repeat a hiking trail. I have since broken this “rule” many times and this trail, the Cape of Good Hope Trail, is increasingly responsible for these “transgressions”. The trail is like an old friend, familiar and comfortable, but with many moods and sometimes, black ones in a south-easterly blow.
This time we struck out from the reserve gate in a thick sea mist so that the usual spectacular views of the eastern peninsula towards the Point were obscured and all sound muted. The blanket of fog lasted the whole day, slowly lifting over the land, but clinging to the colder waters of False Bay. It made for a slightly surreal experience, absent of other humans. The only other primates we met were the baboons at Buffelsbaai, where they were feeding on the green grass shoots. They were very relaxed and the little ones were curious, and they allowed us to pass closely, unmolested. It is a large troop with many pregnant females and juveniles, so life for them seems good, their natural diet supplemented, no doubt, by high-calorie human derived foods obtained occasionally on raids of unsuspecting tourist cars and picnics.
We lunched on the sheet of rock at Booi se Skerm. The scene provided a photo (below) that gives the illusion of us clinging to a vertical rock wall because between the grey water and the grey mist there was no discernable horizon. Further south, a large swell thumped into Antoniesgat as we skirted the red cliffs, before we approached the atmospheric Erica Hut under a clearing sky. (The photo at the top of the page shows Erica Hut under moonlight, looking north over the peninsula).
After a pleasant stay in the well-appointed Erica Hut, my favourite on this trail, we headed up the west coast under a clearing sky. A highlight was the plentiful wildlife including bontebok, ostriches and a lone Cape clawless otter patrolling a deserted beach. The only other members of our species that we saw were some hardcore surfers at Platboom and Gifkommetjie, who had just completed a frigid, early morning session, it seemed.
The last time I walked this trail, in 2028, the area around Sirkelsvlei had burnt. The photos below show the same areas, in 2018 and now. The veld has recovered well and is rich in Golden Spiderheads (Serruria villosa).
2018
2024
2018
2024
The thick mist caused a curious technical issue: usually all my photos are geotagged using the ‘phone’s GPS but afterwards I discovered that none of the photos take on day one could be placed on the above map because it appears that insufficient GPS signals were received so that the locations defaulted to 0N 0E. This must be an issue with the ‘phone’s GPS antenna because my Garmin Foretrex has never failed me in thick cloud and mist, and in fact, once led us out of a dangerous front high in the Winterhoek mountains.
View the trail photo album
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