Yellowwood trail, Kirstenbosch

If you're look­ing for a not-so-taxing, can-do-on-extremely-hot-days kind of hike, then the Yellowwood trail at Kirstenbosch is def­in­itely up there on the list, along with strolls through neigh­bour­ing Cecilia forest and Newlands forest.

It's also a great hike to do with chil­dren as it's man­age­able within a couple of hours, or can extend into a whole morn­ing of it as the delight­ful pools along the way are invari­ably filled with tad­poles or pebbles and a lit­any of other amuse­ment options.

Most import­antly the walk takes one through what remains of beau­ti­ful Afromontane forests in the foot­hills of the moun­tains at Kirstenbosch. Afromontane forest is typ­ic­ally found in moun­tain­ous regions, char­ac­ter­ist­ic­ally in the Drakensberg, Mpumalanga highveld and Knysna, and filled with massive trees like yel­low­wood, Cape beech, iron­wood, stink­wood, hard pear, shrubs, ferns and a series of wild 'mon­key rope' vines that allowed the boys on our walk to give vent to every desire to imper­son­ate mon­keys or Tarzan.

The Yellowwood trail is one of four sign pos­ted trails you can do within the bound­ar­ies of Kirstenbosch. And the start of the trail fol­lows the road that leads into Skeleton Gorge, but it's well sign­posted so there isn't much chance that you'll con­tinue upward after the ini­tial incline of the walk by mis­take. Trust me, you're look­ing out for the sign that indic­ates you can head off at a gentler pace on the con­tour path long before it appears. About the time when the littlest one says 'mom, please carry me'!

You're also only in the sun for the ini­tial part of the walk, which is about ten minutes or so, and then you enter the dappled sanc­tu­ary of the forest, and there is an imme­di­ate sense of calm and cool, although it was fairly humid in the forest when we attemp­ted the walk. If you're quiet enough, you'll see any num­ber of birds, includ­ing owls, and the rust­ling of forest shrews, mon­goose and mice. We found a beau­ti­ful spe­ci­men of a bumble bee lying dead on the side of the path. Alright, not quite an owl, but oth­ers on the hike with us prom­ised they'd spot­ted one on their last time in the forest.

And that's the major draw of this walk. You can do it repeatedly without it becom­ing any­thing close to bor­ing. The won­der­ful thing about forests is that they're chan­ging all the time — trees fall, new paths develop and sea­sons change. Come here in winter and the river that was a trickle on our walk, is a raging tor­rent due to rain­fall, tad­poles give way to frogs, and we seek out the sunny patches, rather than try­ing to remain within the cool of the forest.

In total the Yellowwood trail is about 3 kilo­metres. Not much, but there is both a pretty steep ascent and des­cent, so if your knees are giv­ing you prob­lems, there are other paths you'll want to try first, and for the avid hiker, this is pretty much a waste of time if you're look­ing for exersion.

It starts on the path just oppos­ite the fra­grance garden, or what remains of it as at the moment Kirstenbosch is replen­ish­ing these beds. This path, or rather track, is known as Smuts' Track, and pretty soon it hits a mod­er­ately steep gradi­ent that meanders along­side Skeleton stream and even­tu­ally leads one to Skeleton Gorge water­fall, upon which you stumble on the con­tour path. The water­fall comes from way above one from Skeleton Gorge, and those attempt­ing the far more ardu­ous hike, head off above the water­fall and higher.

Reaching the Skeleton Gorge water­fall, or trickle as it was on our walk, is some­thing of a bless­ing. You'll have just done the full climb into the forest and if it's hot, be badly in need of a cool off. Right at the foot of the water­fall is a pool that provides a lot of fun and a great place to paddle. It's a good spot for snacks and shoes off time too. You could see just how force­ful the water could be though, given that a couple of trees were stand­ing a little lower down, their roots exposed, and the sand around them eroded to within an inch of their roots.

The forest around us, unbe­known to us, was under­go­ing some­thing of recov­ery. Alien tree plant­a­tions were removed what must be close to 25 years ago as there is evid­ence that many of the ini­tial pion­eer trees, such as keur­boom trees, are busy dying, as they do after about this length of time. They will have provided enough shade to the true forest trees to allow them to grow unhindered. Hence the rather obvi­ous hard pear trees, which now have thicker trunks even than the keur­boom. But if you don't know what to look out for, the forest is simply a beau­ti­ful forest.

We were also aware of younger yel­low­woods – the trail's name­sake is not in evid­ence as mature trees, as many of these met a fate that had some­thing to do with the need for ceil­ings, floors and fur­niture (believe it or not, this would have been from 1652 to the 1800s when the ini­tial set­tlers hit Cape Town). Since 1960 this entire forest has been under rehabilitation.

A little fur­ther along you come to yet another stream, this one out of the deep shade of Skeleton Gorge, in the midst of scrub forest and a really good place for a dip, par­tic­u­larly if you're hot. This water is the typ­ical tea-coloured 'black water' that one evid­ences lower down in the gar­dens themselves.

Out of the water and back on the path, you reach what is termed a good 'view­ing site', which has some­thing to do with the fact that a major land­slide occurred here in 1996 bring­ing half the cliff away with it and totally des­troy­ing trees that were over 300 years old on the hill­side. But it does give one a great place to look out over the Cape Flats, Muizenberg and False Bay, as you begin to des­cend once again.

This part of the hike is again rather warm. The fyn­bos scrub through which we passed had obvi­ously suffered in the last couple of months and some of it was notice­ably scorched. By this time, you're begin­ning to dream about the tea you have wait­ing on ice in the boot of the car! The Yellowwood trail ends at the garden centre, close to the top res­taur­ant, quite handy if you've packed a pic­nic that just needs to be brought in from the car.

Useful Links:
Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
Cape Town Attractions
Western Cape Hiking Trails