I did it Five Bays!

Five Bay Trail

It is just as well that when first read­ing the email invit­ing us to join one of the Cape West Coast Biosphere Trails that the rather obvi­ous fact that I was going to have to actu­ally walk the 28 km didn't register. Or I prob­ably would have chickened out and sent my other half without me.

My eye, instead, homes into the word 'gentle' (used to describe the hik­ing trail) and the fact that we will not have to carry heavy packs, will have our food laid on for us, and be put up in a B&B in Paternoster. I need no fur­ther persuasion.

The Five Bay Trail is described as a walk­ing trail. And for those who are seasoned hikers, it is pos­sibly a walk in the park, although you'll more than get your exer­cise in. For those of you, like me, who walk occa­sion­ally and do not count yourselves as fit, you will man­age, only just... Continued

The Kouga Wilderness – experience it by land or by water

Eden to Addo

I know someone who has kayaked along the Kouga River. He describes his trip as a com­plete escape from civil­isa­tion and some­thing you have to do once in a life­time. Camping on the banks of the river, which leads through isol­ated wil­der­ness the beauty of which will cap­ture your heart and enslave you to the memor­ies of what it is to be alone on a river, is now top of his list of the incred­ible get­aways he has exper­i­enced (and he's exper­i­enced a number).

The Kouga Wilderness is prob­ably best explored this way. It hasn't been described by some as 'inhos­pit­able' for noth­ing – tangled rav­ine forests, sheer rock faces that scream to be abseiled, whilst beau­ti­ful from the tran­quil, rel­at­ive safety of the river, are rather ardu­ous on foot. Continued

The Otter Trail in photographs

The Otter Trail

The Otter Trail is one of South Africa’s most well-known hik­ing trails, pop­u­lar with both loc­als and inter­na­tional vis­it­ors thanks to its incred­ible scenery. The trail starts at the Storms River mouth and ends at Nature’s Valley in the beau­ti­ful Tsitsikamma Nature Reserve on the Garden Route.

Our team of 5 hikers recently "did" the Otter Trail — here­with a pre­view of their exper­i­ence in pho­to­graphs. We look for­ward to bring­ing you a series of art­icles about the 41 kilo­metre, 5 day hike which changes in elev­a­tion from sea level to about 150m above.

Though only 42.5 kms long, it is not an easy trail. It is how­ever, well worth the per­sever­ance ... Continued

Ride the Cederberg Heritage Route in a donkey cart — a clean, green break

Cederberg Heritage Route

A friend of mine on Facebook, Jeremy Smith, has co-written a fant­astic Rough Guide called Clean Breaks – 500 New Ways to See the World. He's also an editor of Big Picture TV and the founder of the web­site www.ivili.org that pro­motes innov­a­tions from around the world for sus­tain­able liv­ing — filled with a host of unique ideas people have come up with, like a bicycle powered water pump, turn­ing trash bags into toys, port­able classrooms for nomads in Ethiopia and float­ing solar powered schools in Bangladesh.

But this blog is not about my 'friends' on FB, des­pite the fact that Jeremy's an all-round good guy. What is inter­est­ing about his book is that one of the clean breaks he has selec­ted, given that he and co-author Richard Hammond had the whole world to choose from, is the Cederberg Heritage Route ... Continued

Kogelberg Nature Reserve — world's greatest biodiversity hot-spot?

Kogelberg Reserve

Just out­side Kleinmond, about an hours drive from Cape Town, is the Kogelberg Nature Reserve. Lying within the south­ern stretch of the Hottentots Holland moun­tain range, this reserve has remained secluded and unspoilt. With high moun­tain sum­mits, sharp kloofs, val­leys and numer­ous trib­u­tar­ies of the beau­ti­ful Palmiet River, the Kogelberg Nature Reserve will enthrall even the most intrepid trav­el­ler with its remote wilderness.

Home to over 1654 plant spe­cies, the Kogelberg Reserve is a visual delight that will appeal to both nature lov­ers and his­tory lov­ers alike. Boasting one of the best examples of moun­tain Fynbos in the Western Cape, this reserve has many mem­bers of the Protea fam­ily, which include the endangered rose marsh ... Continued