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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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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Mad dogs and Englishmen …
... go out in the midday sun (in the Cederberg in summer) Or so the song goes. Except that the hiking group comprised a Belgian, a German, a half-Dutchman, a half-Greek-Cypriot and a boeremeisie - the instigator. All keen hikers and outdoorspeople. Almost exactly...
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Hike above Kogelbaai
Studying satellite photos - on Google and Bing maps - of the mountains above Kogelbaai, I was able to discern a definite zig-zag path to the jeep track on the plateau north of Kogelberg Peak. So armed with a GPS waypoint for where the path leaves the Klipspringer...
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Deep into Hottentots Holland Nature Reserve
With much perseverance and determination Santie had obtained a permit to hike to Shamrock Lodge (it's really a basic hiking hut) at Landdroskop, What we didn't know, however, was that the permit was a "special dispensation". So when I arrived at Nuweberg gate, before...
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