Suicide Gorge – the ultimate kloofing experience

Photo © CapeNature

We would have chosen the hot­test day Cape Town has exper­i­enced in years to attempt the legendary kloof­ing in Suicide Gorge in the Hottentots Holland Mountains near Grabouw. We had only looked for­ward to the hike for the bet­ter part of a week, and had done all the right pre­par­a­tions like get­ting our per­mits, set­ting out early, ensur­ing we had plenty of water and sun­screen, and trav­el­ling light, bear­ing in mind that this would be a strenu­ous day of it.

And then the forty odd degree day hit us with a vengeance ....

It used to take set­tlers in Cape Town two days to reach the gor­geous Hottentots Holland Mountains from the fore­shore, which today we can make in a little over an hour, par­tic­u­larly when one heads out early. The Hottentots Holland Nature Reserve, with its entrance close to the town of Grabouw, is not only a won­der­ful place in which to spend a day, it's also the site of two kloof­ing trails, or hikes that end in kloof­ing on most days, ours was to be the excep­tion for some of us.

The Riviersonderend Gorge is 24 kilo­metres long, and Suicide Gorge is a 17 kilo­metre cir­cu­lar haul.  Some people do both gorges on the same day – it is pos­sible and one can head from the one gorge on to the other — but given that we weren't kloof­ing fun­dis, we had decided to play it calm and safe and enjoy what we could of one of the gorges.

On a good day – balmy weather plus a few clouds to take the edge off the heat – the hike takes one deep into the moun­tain fyn­bos with some pretty amaz­ing scenery before reach­ing the gorge, aptly named per­haps because of the jumps (you have to be a pretty good climber to get back out, and the jumps vary from 3 metres to 16 metres), but really it's a beau­ti­ful space with a fast flow­ing tanninnnn-coloured river flow­ing through it, series of water­falls and ancient rock form­a­tions that have taken form over thou­sands of years of water erosion. But I get ahead of myself, for we were to exper­i­ence little of this gorge-ousness.

By the time we set off on the hike it was already appar­ent that the day was a scorcher. The heat was such that most of our walk was com­pletely exposed. Shade wasn't just a premium, there was no shade to be had AT ALL!! Certain mem­bers of our party were seen to dive peri­od­ic­ally under shrubs just to take a little of the heat off! (I exag­ger­ate not, since it was I most of the time!) It prob­ably didn't help that this part of the Western Cape was exper­i­en­cing a drought at the time. There were vir­tu­ally no trees, a few shrubs, it was dry, and the sun beat relent­lessly through­out the hike.

Our friends who accom­pan­ied us kept say­ing how beau­ti­ful the sur­rounds were usu­ally, and parties we met along the way reit­er­ated that this was indeed the case and that we'd just picked a par­tic­u­larly bad day. Well, good or bad day, some friendly advice: Do NOT attempt this hike on a scorch­ingly hot day with the idea that you have only to reach the pools in order to kick back, lie in the shade and cool off! Even the pools were in full sun and there wasn't even a sug­ges­tion of a tree under which to sit and cool off.

Interestingly on our return, I happened upon an account of the hike and the kloofs from a com­pletely dif­fer­ent per­spect­ive. In this account, prob­ably in the colder months, people had brought along wet suits, as once in the kloof it can become really cold and the chill sets in. That I chuckled is a grave under­state­ment. To crown it all, someone else had described the route as 'more of a swim than a hike', and that in extreme weather con­di­tions it could be dan­ger­ous. Whilst I think they were refer­ring to swollen rivers mak­ing off with you, I can attest to the 'dan­ger­ous­ness' of this walk dur­ing extreme heat.

Before the hike it was sug­ges­ted that a good, dry bag was pretty essen­tial to keep everything else dry, once in the kloof, but to be hon­est, we didn't do the jumps or swim once in the kloof. We were so pooped from the heat when we finally reached the kloof that it was only three of our party who leapt off, defy­ing death in the pro­cess – not so much the jump, although this was hairy enough – but the clam­ber back out on the slip­pery rocks, exposed to the heat of the day.

In fair­ness, and after some time to lose my ini­tial hor­ror at the over­dose of sun­shine, I can ima­gine that this walk fol­lowed by the kloof­ing is an incred­ible exper­i­ence. The jump looked really hairy, but if I hadn't been con­sumed with the inca­pa­city of heat exhaus­tion I am sure that I would have had a ball.

As to whether or not I'd do it again, well, I'll have to get back to you about that...

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Tourism reser­va­tions and book­ings
National callers: 0861 CAPENATURE (227 362 8873)
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Please note: The route is open from 1 November to 30 April.
Hikers should be fit.
Light foot­wear is advis­able, as well as a wet­suit.
Use a water­proof bag.

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