A pristine winter’s day on Victoria Peak
At 1589 m ASL Victoria Peak is the highest summit in the Jonkershoek range. From the grassy dome one can see Table Mountain beyond Stellenbosch Mountain and Haelkop, south over the Groenland mountains above Grabouw and Elgin, the blue - and once more spreading -...
A militarised Wolhuter Wilderness Trail
Kruger National Park This was my third or fourth Wolhuter Trail since the late nineties, but it was like no other. The anti-poaching ¨war¨ has changed the atmosphere in the park. It is like we are clinging on to a century-old, island model of conservation that is...
Picnic at Hangklip
The unmistakable Hangklip (hanging rock) peak is in the Hangklip Core Conservation Area, one of many such areas in the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve. It is a nature gem wedged between the growing and ugly sprawl of Pringle Bay and Betty's Bay residential areas. The...
Gantouw Pass
Recently I have been stalking the Cape Town - Elgin heritage steam train on Saturdays to shoot drone video as it winds its way up Sir Lowry´s Pass - sometimes without success either because of excessive wind or arriving either too early or too late for the train. On...
Seweweekspoort Para-cycle Tour
Why refer to our truncated, private annual cycle tour as a ¨para¨ cycle tour? Around the braai fire at our pre-tour campsite at Towerkraaltjie, we came to the joint realisation that almost all of us were nursing or recovering from some physical injury or other, not...
Paddling to Steenbras mouth
Deon and I had both suffered fairly serious physical injuries during the past two years and as a result our paddling adventures had stalled. Recently we had tentatively ventured back into the sea kayak, and this weekend we resolved to paddle around to one of our...
Cape of Good Hope Trail 11 years later
I had been wanting to walk this trail again for a while but had found it a little difficult to determine how and where to book it. Eventually it was booked in time for Peter's annual pilgrimage to Africa - and coincidentally it was timed for almost eleven years...
Grootvadersbosch and Boosmansbos
At Peter's suggestion, prior to his annual pilgrimage back to the Cape, we booked a couple of nights' camping in Grootvadersbosch with the idea of perhaps hiking to the Boosmansbos forest. We had undertaken the 2-day wilderness hike way back in 1999 in mist and...
Botmaskop
Botmaskop is a 910 m peak near my home and is the first mountain I see when I leave for work each morning. Its form is unique in the Jonkershoek ranges, resembling the prow of a dreadnought. The hike up takes about 2 hours, following a spur through municipal tree...
Western Panorama Trail
Up Swartboskloof and down Kurktrekker, Jonkershoek Nature Reserve The last time we ascended Swartboskloof I ended up under the knife to fix a ruptured disc. So this hike, once more with Santie - and Dorette - was something of a rite of passage, a reckoning with past...
Panorama Trail in spring
It was fantastic to get back into the mountains again on a serious hike for the first time since the back op in February. And the Boland served up the perfect day: warm, windless, impossibly blue, water coursing out of the rock and seeps everywhere, and the veld...
Coastal hikes in South Africa
Here is a guide to the South African coastal hikes I have had the privilege of experiencing. Hopefully it is useful to those who are planning to walk our beautiful and diverse coastline. The list starts at the north-eastern-most trail - the Pondo Trail from Mkambati...
Gentle adventures in the Canadian Rockies
This year the nature of our mid-winter break was more commensurate with our newly-minted status of grandparents. From the moment little Elena was born in Calgary, there was only going to be one destination. Fortunately Calgary is an hour's drive from the Rockies and...
Groot-Gouritz MTB Tour 2018
By popular demand we arranged another private MTB tour aimed at occasional cyclists, and not racers. The format was the same: reasonable daily distances, emphasis on touring and taking in the scenery, backup vehicles trailing us, plenty of stops and camping all the...
Skeletons, tables, castles and caves
As I lie here recovering from spinal surgery, I thought I would post about my last hike of any consequence before the double bout with operating theatres, one planned and the other not. Santie organised this classic route ascending Skeleton Gorge from Kirstenbosch...
Beyond Gordon’s Bay’s anchor
Gordon's Bay was our family's beach during the '50s and '60s. We spent many playful hours in its warm waters, holidaying at Thelma's Guesthouse - now long gone - and watching the fishing boats in the old harbour. The black and white photo below shows the bay and town...
Groothoekkloof descent
Traversing the Matroosberg from the Ceres side to the Hex River valley Paul Verhoeven proposed and led this 3-day kloofing trip as a more "sedate" version of the usual MCSA two-day dash down the kloof. Groothoekkloof descends rapidly from the ski slopes of the...
Cederberg the sedate way
December in the Cederberg is hot. So although Peter and I had all the best intentions of hiking into the wilderness from our camping bases at Sanddrif and Algeria, reality was decidedly less energy-intensive. We took a 9 km round-trip walk to the Maltese Cross and...
Leopard’s Gorge hike, cycle back
From Kogelberg to Harold Porter Botanical Garden and back I fail to understand why I hadn't thought of it before. The Leopard's Gorge hike is a perennial favourite: short and scenically spectacular, fynbos and forest. But the logistics of leaving transport at both...
Ordesa
Walks in Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park, Pyrenees After the Canal du Midi we rented a car at Carcassonne and drove through the Pyrenees to Torla in Spain, a mediaeval town high up in the mountains near the mouth of the Valle de Ordesa. Peter had argued for the...
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