The Swellendam Hiking Trail — a 6-day hike in the Langeberg mountains

The first time I went to Swellendam I ended up in a Native American sweat lodge.  Yes, I know that sounds like an excuse that you’d usu­ally hear from a guy try­ing to explain to his wife why he’s been out drink­ing all night, but this is true. Honest.

Our hol­i­day in Swellendam had star­ted very nor­mally. We had booked into a small cabin over­look­ing the kind of lush, peace­ful val­ley that one dreams about when star­ing at the 177^th email of the day.  We’d unpacked the stuff from the car and had tried to take in some of the tran­quil still­ness that sur­roun­ded us, but we are city folks and are rest­less by nature and so needed a little time to get into coun­try life ...

So we decided to go for a walk in the calm Swellendam after­noon, little know­ing that by that night we’d be painted in mud and con­tact­ing our inner totem animal.

Our walk led us to the most incon­gru­ous sight any of us had ever seen; a tipi vil­lage hap­pily nestled in the Swellendam val­ley. The own­ers of the camp invited us in and told us that a trav­el­ling shaman just happened to be stay­ing in the vil­lage that night and would be con­duct­ing a Native American sweat lodge. Which we later found out was basic­ally an incred­ibly long, incred­ibly hot sauna in a rather small space with a lot of other people.  The sheer strange­ness of find­ing a Native American cere­mony in a tipi vil­lage in South African farm­lands con­vinced us that we had to try it. The rest, as they say, is history.

But con­tact­ing our Native American spirit anim­als wasn’t the only thing we did on that hol­i­day, we also went on the Swellendam Hiking Trail, which was, in its own way, every bit as extreme, dif­fi­cult and sweaty as the Native American ceremony.

This is just out­side of Swellendam. Although rel­at­ively fit and with enough gear to attempt Everest, I’m hardly what you call an accom­plished hiker and was glad to have people with me for whom a 6-day hike was like a walk in the park.

There are six huts scattered across the trail that offer basic amen­it­ies, although fires are only allowed in cer­tain areas because of the very real risk of veld fires.  The veget­a­tion is pre­dom­in­antly fyn­bos (there was pine forest at the begin­ning and end of the trail) and there are amaz­ing views as you ascend the cliffs and beau­ti­ful sun­sets to watch from out­side the huts.

We didn’t see any game on the trail, but a ranger assured us that there were vari­ous spe­cies of bok to be seen if one was the right place at the right time.  We did see some birds of prey, how­ever, which gave me an excuse to rest while I watched on the some­times dif­fi­cult trail.

By far my favour­ite nat­ural fea­tures, how­ever, were the nat­ural streams and small pools which provided much needed drink­ing water and are the most pos­sibly the most bliss­ful things in exist­ence after hik­ing in the sun for hours.

This is one of the toughest hikes I’ve done.  I had to make sev­eral unsched­uled stops sev­eral to rest, much to the annoy­ance of the fit­ter hikers in our group. Portions of the route are incred­ibly ardu­ous and I wouldn’t recom­mend it to any­body who is hop­ing for a relaxed time in nature. Try a Native American sweat lodge instead.

Contact Cape Nature:
It is not neces­sary to reserve day vis­its but the Swellendam Hiking Trail and accom­mod­a­tion should be reserved in advance. Contact Cape Nature on:
National callers: 0861 CAPENATURE (227 362 8873)
International callers: 0027 861 227 362 8873 / 0027 21 659 3500

Useful Swellenda, Links:
Swellendam Attractions
Marloth Nature Reserve
Swellendam Accommodation
Western Cape Accommodation