The Kouga Wilderness – experience it by land or by water

Eden to Addo

I know someone who has kayaked along the Kouga River. He describes his trip as a com­plete escape from civil­isa­tion and some­thing you have to do once in a life­time. Camping on the banks of the river, which leads through isol­ated wil­der­ness the beauty of which will cap­ture your heart and enslave you to the memor­ies of what it is to be alone on a river, is now top of his list of the incred­ible get­aways he has exper­i­enced (and he's exper­i­enced a number).

The Kouga Wilderness is prob­ably best explored this way. It hasn't been described by some as 'inhos­pit­able' for noth­ing – tangled rav­ine forests, sheer rock faces that scream to be abseiled, whilst beau­ti­ful from the tran­quil, rel­at­ive safety of the river, are rather ardu­ous on foot.

The Kouga Wilderness lies in the incred­ible Kouga Mountains on the edge of the Baviaanskloof, advert­ised as the real out­door exper­i­ence, and where you go to climb rocks, kloof, fish, watch birds, hike and adven­ture on 4X4 routes. Those who go want only to return and many of us simply hanker for but one visit.

You get there from either Port Elizabeth of via the N2 from Cape Town, which then con­nects to Route 62, and ulti­mately the lower reaches of the Kougaberg. To place it more squarely in the mind, it lies in the moun­tains north of Joubertina, part­way between PE and George, filled with water­falls, forest pools, wild­flowers, sheer rock faces and the odd farm for those mad enough to want to live in the middle of nowhere (or just about).

Thankfully there is also the odd camp­site and get­away on these farms (see Grootnek Guest Farm), where you can share in the still­ness, incred­ible scenery and rugged moun­tain­ous ter­rain that is part of the lar­ger Baviaanskloof. Despite the odd quad bike and 4X4 trail anim­als are return­ing to the area due to the work of the Baviaanskloof Mega Reserve, a World Heritage Site and the largest pro­tec­ted area in the coun­try, with no less than seven bio­mes filled with birds and animals.

As my friend — the one on the river – described: there is a feel­ing to parts of the area of a com­plete lack of dis­turb­ance, as if no man has ever been this way. Not to be out­done, I began explor­ing to find a trip that we might take to exper­i­ence this incred­ible des­tin­a­tion and have come up with a couple of altern­at­ives, depend­ing on whether you want to do it by land or by water.

1. Walk the Eden to Addo Corridor Initiative

(and raise money for con­ser­va­tion whilst you're at it)

Eden to Addo

The cor­ridor describes a strip of land con­nect­ing two pro­tec­ted areas, in this case actu­ally link­ing three mega-reserves – the Garden Route National Park, the Baviaanskloof Mega Reserve, and the Addo Elephant National Park. The idea is that a cor­ridor ini­ti­ates and encour­ages a greater diversity than cor­don­ing an area off to pro­tect it behind fences.

Eden to Addo is the migra­tion path of the ancient ele­phant in the Cape. I know I said that there were two options to find­ing your way in and through the Kouga Wilderness, but in the Eden to Addo case, you can actu­ally choose whether you want to cycle or walk it.

The 550 kilo­metres Eden to Addo chal­lenge, dur­ing which you also raise funds for the con­ser­va­tion of the cor­ridor, is not for sis­sies. I looked instead at the hike, mostly because you can do this as a slack­pack ver­sion, with only your day pack and your lunch, which does little to detract from the fact that it's an 18 day hike!

The first six days of the hike take you from the indi­gen­ous forests of Knysna on the Garden Route, through what is known as the Garden of Eden. The hike tra­verses through the Tsitsikamma National Park for two days and then finally enters the Kouga Mountains.

The next six days lead from the Langkloof val­ley into the foot­hills of the Kouga moun­tains through the hid­den wil­der­ness that is the Kouga Wilderness and the Baviaanskloof (the reason for the hike). Days 11 and 12 you can even expect to meet rhino, buf­falo and kudu along the way.

The final six days of the hike, which raises money for con­ser­va­tion, a won­der­ful incent­ive should you find your­self flag­ging, leaves the cent­ral Baviaanskloof and heads up the plat­eau and down into the Cambria val­ley and on, end­ing deep in the Kabouga region of Addo. There will be reason, at this stage, to celebrate.

The hike costs R20k but includes all meals, camp­ing fees, guides, per­mits, safari tents and trans­fers. And it makes no apo­lo­gies for being rus­tic. Despite this the wil­der­ness and the sheer endur­ance of the incred­ible hike is an unfor­get­table experience.

Contact: Eden to Addo Initiative: +27(0)44 533 1623 or see the web­site at Eden to Addo.

2. Kayak the Kouga River

Eden to Addo

There are a couple of com­pan­ies that will guide you up the Kouga River, one of them based in Storm's River. The idea is that you paddle through mag­ni­fi­cent gorges with only black eagles and baboons to accom­pany you, before pulling off on one of the sandy beaches that peri­od­ic­ally present them­selves en route, to sleep under the stars.

By around day three you will be deep enough into the silence of the Baviaanskloof to leave the river and overnight on one of the farms where you can hope to spot game and spend the night sur­roun­ded by the sounds of the wild. Day four will return you by car to the start of your expedition.

To be able to par­take in these won­der­ful few days you will need a cer­tain amount of perserver­ance and chutzpah – three or four days pad­dling in isol­a­tion soon sep­ar­ates the determ­ined from the woosies (those scared of spiders, and chil­dren under the age of 10 don't qual­ify). And one of the com­pan­ies who offer this form of the adven­ture through the Kouga Wilderness claims you do not need boat­ing exper­i­ence – that these skills can be acquired within the first day on the river.

The main reason for the exped­i­tion is to loc­ate the isol­ated parts of the wil­der­ness envir­on­ment, to get the adren­aline going, and to exper­i­ence what it is to lose your­self in the full immens­ity of the wilderness.

Useful Links:

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