The Swartberg Hiking Trail

I’m not a born hiker. Some people seem to have a nat­ural inclin­a­tion to walk­ing long dis­tances, over uneven ter­rain, car­ry­ing heavy weights and call it leis­ure time. Myself, I’ve always thought that since our ancest­ors had no other option but to leg it every­where, we owe it to them to make use of the won­ders of man­made tech­no­logy as often as possible.

That said, I’ve slowly been com­ing round to the idea that scram­bling over rocks, with noth­ing but trail­mix and water as fuel, can actu­ally be a reward­ing and even enjoy­able exper­i­ence. The hikes I’ve done on Table Mountain, in Ceres and in such fantasy novel set­tings such as Hogsback have proven to me that there is much more to hik­ing than aching legs and blisters on the feet ...

Still when someone sug­ges­ted we do a five-day hike I was filled with more than a little trep­id­a­tion. And more than that the name of the sug­ges­ted spot, The Swartberg Mountains — mean­ing lit­er­ally ‘Black Mountain’ — sounds more like a place in said fantasy novel where you would go to des­troy a ring of pure evil rather than a place where you go to explore nature.

Photograph: Landscape Little Karoo in South Africa as seen from the top of swart­berg pass

The Swartberg hik­ing trail is in the Little Karoo (nearest towns are Oudtshoorn and Prince Albert) in the Western Cape, a place fam­ous mostly for its ostrich farms and The Cango Caves, the ancient Precambrian lime­stone cav­erns that kids and old ladies love to get stuck and lost in.  The trail is actu­ally com­prised of sev­eral inter­linked trails that offer vary­ing degrees of dif­fi­culty. A per­mit must be obtained from Cape Nature Conservation as only a lim­ited num­ber of hikers are allowed on the trail.

Be warned, the Swartberg can be rather unfor­giv­ing. Hikers must carry their own drink­ing water and be pre­pared for any even­tu­al­ity of weather. Extreme wind and rain while hik­ing is thor­oughly unpleas­ant and can occur sud­denly and without warning.

But enough of the scare­mon­ger­ing, with proper pre­par­a­tion the Swartberg hik­ing trail is an amaz­ing exper­i­ence turn­ing even the most cyn­ical city-dwellers like me into cer­ti­fied tree-huggers. When walk­ing for such long stretches the mind seems to quiet down and focus on appre­ci­at­ing the here and now. See I told you; tree-hugger.

The land­scape is truly spec­tac­u­lar and as the trail pro­gresses offers some true nat­ural gems. Multiple vari­et­ies of fyn­bos form the bulk of the shrub­bery that you will tra­verse and although lack­ing in large game, we did see some baboons and dassies, and the local bird­life is well worth pack­ing a pair of bin­ocu­lars for.

Overnight huts provid­ing dormitory-style bunks are scattered across the trail and provide ablu­tions and areas to braai. Forget gour­met res­taur­ants and 5-star chefs, simple braai food thrown on the fire and charred lightly on both side is, after a whole day of hik­ing, the most amaz­ing thing imaginable.

I really enjoyed it, but five days is a long time to hike and the Swartberg hik­ing trail is not really a beginner’s trail. I would recom­mend that rel­at­ive new­bies like me under­take to do a few lesser hikes before try­ing to tackle these ‘Black Mountains’.

Cape Nature Contact Details:
National callers: 0861 CAPENATURE (227 362 8873)
International callers: +27 861 227 362‑8873 / +27 21 659‑3500

Useful Links:
Oudtshoorn Attractions
Things to Do in Oudtshoorn
Oudtshoorn Hotels
Oudtshoorn Accommodation
Karoo Accommodation