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 criterion 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,...
Recces and repeats
I haven't posted in a while, so those who believe that if an outdoor activity hasn't been posted on digital media somewhere then it didn't occur, might think that I have been idle. Although there have been other distractions - like grandkids arriving for a long visit,...
Simonsberg
Simonsberg has been a looming, brooding presence in my life for almost fifty years. It towered to starboard daily on the short walks to engineering classes, and later on the cycle commutes to work. In stressful times when I needed calm and to gaze at something...
Smitswinkel – Simon’s Town Traverse
As with most hikes on the Cape Peninsula, this traverse is visually spectacular. It can be walked in either direction, but on this occasion the MCSA trail leader thought it better to tackle the steep section in the morning because high northerly winds were expected...
The Kogelberg Trail
The Kogelberg Trail is a circular, 24 km hiking trail in the Kogelberg Nature Reserve. Last weekend's walk was fifth time that I have done it, as I remember. All the gradients are gradual, there is no exposure nor scrambles and the trail has few obstacles. It is...
Twelve Apostles Traverse
Another bright idea from Santie. Peter and I had previously, many years ago, ascended Myburgh's Ravine and I suspect we came down Llandudno Ravine, but there are large sections of the Twelve Apostles that I have not walked. It was an exquisite day. The steel rungs at...
Tankwa Cycle Tour
Via Ouberg and Gannaga passes Our regular private cycle tours were interrupted by the pandemic and as the Cape exited its second wave, with all beaches and parks having been closed to the public, the need to get out on some remote roads took hold. I started recruiting...
Orange Face Back Table
Camel Rock, Wynberg Caves, Table Mountain National Park This was an interesting hike, at Santie's suggestion, on the well-trafficked Table Mountain. It is a track less travelled on which we saw no one else although there were hundreds of walkers and joggers on the...
Dropping down Cascades
When Paul suggested a lockdown escape to Cascades in Du Toitskloof, with a little abseiling involved, I thought it a decent idea. I knew that the MCSA often scrambled up it and abseiled down the next day. My conclusion was that if you can scramble up it, it can't be...
Kloofing Visgat
Almost by accident I was nominated to lead a MCSA Stellenbosch section kloofing trip down the Visgat canyon. Visgat is a highlight of the MCSA Cape Town section's summer calendar and they kindly allocate a few dates to Stellenbosch. The fact that I could have easily...
Fighting aliens in De Hoop
My recent post, The Whale Trail in the Pandemic, has attracted enormous traffic, by the standards of my site at least. In it I opine that biological control of Acacia cyclops (rooikrans) in De Hoop Nature Reserve is failing because my - admittedly unscientific and...
The Whale Trail in the pandemic
As South Africa emerged from the hard lockdown in mid-2020, I became desperate to escape to the outdoors. On the off-chance that the Whale Trail was open, I contacted Cape Nature and easily obtained a booking for the trail in January 2021. The hugely popular trail was...
Burnt dogs, no Englishmen
A wilderness hike in the Cederberg in December is not everybody’s cup of tea, so when the weather report predicted the mercury rising to a scorching 40°C on day 3 of the proposed trip, I was quite surprised when there were no last minute cancellations, even from the...
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