Boating the Lot River
After the hugely enjoyable canal boat trip on the Canal du Midi five years ago, another French self-navigating boating holiday was always in our future. With seven months of long leave due before retirement, the opportunity presented itself and we convinced the...
Cycling Connemara
Having booked another canal boat adventure in southern France and been invited to Belgium by the Verhoevens, the first week of our European visit was still undecided. As Marion is of Irish descent, a trip to the emerald isle has been on the cards at some stage. So...
Baviaanskloof Cycle Tour 2022
After an absence of five years, a cycling trip to the Baviaanskloof was required. We planned it according to our usual, proven format: a small group of riders (6) who are accompanied by two vehicles (2 drivers), short to moderate distances per day and a leisurely pace...
Betty’s Bay to Rooiels
Some recent excursions up the Rooiels valley had shown that an old trail joins up with an old jeep track that ascends out of the Palmiet valley. A relatively easy, though long, walk is thus possible from Rooiels to Oudebosch/Harold Porter Botanical Garden, or vice...
Klein Hangklip
As the name suggests, Klein Hangklip is a smaller replica of Hangklip peak located further south at Cape Hangklip. Hangklip is the sentinel east of False Bay's entrance. In the age of sail, many a navigator mistook Hangklip for the Cape of Good Hope and ended up being...
Five days in Groot Winterhoek
I was privileged to be invited, with five others, by Santie to share her birthday hike in the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area - one day for each decade. Although we had wonderful weather - windless and sunny - and simply being out there with like-minded people was...
To the Rooiels source
I think we decided on the route for that day at breakfast. The only criterium was that we would walk from my house and not drive anywhere. Santie would be on a mission anyway: to log her 1200th species on iNaturalist. My previous hike up the Rooiels River valley had...
Rooiels River walk
This was my first hike from our new home in Rooiels, having moved to this coastal paradise in the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve five weeks ago. We quickly came to realise that we have landed in the middle of a contest between the preservationists/conservationists who...
Pipe Track to Hout Bay Corner
Via Corridor and Llandudno ravines December in the Cape saw a lot of unseasonal rain allied to some nasty Black South-Easters. The latter means low cloud on the mountains and unpleasant conditions. But desperate for a walk of some sort, Santie and I decided on a Table...
A farewell to Stellenbosch Mountain
After 34 years of living and working in Stellenbosch, not to mention 4 years as students here, we are preparing to move to the Kogelberg coast for the next phase of our lives. Although I don't have any notion of deliberately taking leave of familiar peaks and trails,...
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