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Posted on: Tuesday, 4 August 2009
South African Hiking Trails

The Whale Trail

Posted to: Activities and Things To Do, Western Cape

The Whale Trail is not a new trail, hav­ing been around since about 2002, but it has become extremely pop­u­lar. Nonetheless, the five-day Whale Hiking trail must be one of South Africa's greatest selling points. It is truly a unique exper­i­ence, per­haps com­par­able with the likes of the Otter Trail that rates as one of the top 10 trails in the coun­try and is pop­u­lar to the point that one needs to book two years in advance, so be warned!

The Whale Trail spans over 55 kilo­metres from Potberg to Koppie Alleen with five overnight stops. Its com­par­ison with the Otter Trail stops at its pop­ular­ity and the cliff-top walk to Hamerkop, for the rest of its set­ting is totally dif­fer­ent. The Whale Trail com­bines both moun­tain and coastal walk­ing, pre­dom­in­antly through the De Hoop Nature Reserve, close to Bredasdorp.

Whale Trail

Of course the main reason for doing the hike, other than the incred­ible scenery, is the increased chance of sight­ing whales. De Hoop lies on a por­tion of the coast strongly asso­ci­ated with the Southern Right Whale. Sometimes more than 50 of these peace­ful giants can be spot­ted at a time.

Better still, the hike is designed for those with a mod­er­ate degree of fit­ness - you don't need to have conquered Kilimanjaro to man­age the Whale Trail - and the days vary when it comes to intens­ity. For instance the first day is the most strenu­ous and cov­ers 15 kilo­metre climb­ing 611 metres of the Potberg Mountain, whilst day three is half that and gives one more time to loiter and drink in the views and the rock pools along the coast.

Overnights are in a series of cot­tages that don't qual­ify as 'rough­ing it', whilst the trail  only takes groups of 6 or 12, so plan­ning who accom­pan­ies you on the hike takes on an added dimension.

Reservations:
Reservations for the Whale Trail can be made through Cape Nature on Telephone: +27 (0)21 659‑3500

Useful Links:
For more des­tin­a­tion inform­a­tion see:
De Hoop Nature Reserve
De Hoop Accommodation
Cape Whale Coast

You are reading Popular Hiking Trails and Walks in South Africa Series Read more from this series of articles.

Article by: The Team @ SA-Venues
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What Others are Saying

3 comments about The Whale Trail
  1. August 4th, 2009 at 17:21
    Wendy says:

    This looks fant­astic — what an fab photo dis­play you have here!

  2. November 17th, 2009 at 22:51
    Francois says:

    Wow, this looks awe­some, and ja, the pix are excellent.

  3. March 19th, 2010 at 14:52
    David Wicht says:

    Last minute Whale Trail book­ing avail­able dur­ing school holidays!

    I had planned to take my daugh­ter and friends on the trail for her birth­day, start­ing Saturday March 27th 2010 to 1st April (just before Easter Weekend) but she has to go for an emer­gency oper­a­tion next week (wis­don teeth). Doctor says not advis­able for her to do the walk so soon there­after. So regretably we may have to can­cel. if you are inter­ested, or know someone who might be, all 12 places are avail­abe. Contact me by fol­low up comment.

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