by Ralph Pina | Jun 2, 2024 | cycling, Featured Posts, safari travel, Swartberg Nature Reserve
Completed by Thomas Bain and his team of convicts in 1888, the Swartberg Pass is now 136 years old, a national monument and a testament to Bain’s road-building skills. It winds through 23.8 km and the bulk of it traverses the Swartberg Nature Reserve, linking... 
by Ralph Pina | Oct 29, 2021 | hiking, Jonkershoek Nature Reserve
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... 
by Ralph Pina | Feb 15, 2021 | kloofing, Limietberg Nature Reserve
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... 
by Ralph Pina | Feb 10, 2020 | kloofing, Limietberg Nature Reserve
Mountain man, Paul Verhoeven, has been the de facto custodian of my adventure bucket list, although he is unlikely to know this. It was he who pointed out the gaps in my admittedly-very-short list of abseil adventures, and insisted that the popular kloofing trips on... 
by Ralph Pina | Aug 26, 2019 | Kruger National Park, safari travel, trails, 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...
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