… in the media - tented tranquillity in new forest refuge

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By Melanie Gosling

Trails in South Africa have come a long way since Robbie Robinson, the then warden of Tsitsikamma National Park, battled to convince his bosses in Pretoria to allow him to build a hiking route from Storms River mouth to Nature's Valley, the now famous Otter Trail.
Since then, formal hiking trails have taken off all over the country, and we now have one in our own backyard - the Hoerikwaggo Hiking Trail.

The trail, which runs through the Table Mountain National Park, is being constructed in stages, and last week saw the launch of the Orange Kloof Hiking Trail, a section that starts in Silvermine and overnights 17 kilometres later at Orange Kloof, an indigenous forest at the top end of Hout Bay which the public may enter only if they have permits.

I and many thousands of others will be able to experience its beauty...

In this little piece of paradise is the Orange Kloof tented camp, the first of five that will be built on the Hoerikwaggo Hiking Trail, which will eventually link Cape Point to Cape Town. The trail continues the next day through the forest, up Disa Gorge, ending at the upper cableway for an easy ride down by cable car. A bonus is that hikers don't have to carry their gear - all bags, food, drinks and sleeping bags are ferried by Table Mountain National Park staff from Silvermine to the overnight camp at Orange Kloof.

I joined a group of media people - including Getaway photographer Scott Ramsay- on the inaugural trail last week, with guides Noluthando Mathe and Grabeth Nduna.

They are two of the young guides, drawn from the ranks of the unemployed, who have been trained to accompany hikers along the Hoerikwaggo Trail, pointing out interesting bits of botanical, historical and cultural information.

The guides in themselves are interesting. Chatting to Noluthando, I found she had grown up barefoot in rural Eastern Cape and came to join her domestic worker mother in Cape Town as a schoolgirl after her grandmother died.

"My mother keeps on telling me to get a real job in an office, but I tell her I love this," Nolu said laughing.

We set off under a brooding sky, passing the bright mauves and purples of the keurbooms in bloom, with the chattering song of the orange-breasted sunbird.

Winding up from Silvermine, we popped out high above Chapman's Peak, with a spectacular view over Hout Bay, the Karbonkelberg and out to sea.

As the wind got stronger and it started to drizzle, we walked down to the contour path with the magnificent sweep of the bay below us, surrounded by some of the 8 578 plants that make up the famous Cape Floral Kingdom.

The trail winds up the Vlakkenberg, where one looks back over False Bay, and then descends to Constantia Nek and across to Orange Kloof.

Entering the forest makes it hard to believe one is a stone's throw from the dense settlement of Hout Bay. It is so quiet, just a Piet-my-vrou in the distance, the gurgling of a river and chirrup of frogs.

This must have been what greeted the Dutch settlers in the 17th century, who then set about hacking down the forest for timber.

Stephen Lamb, who was instrumental in designing the camp at Orange Kloof, said they had constructed it on the principle of "touch the earth lightly".

"It is all holes and poles, no concrete or bricks, so it can be dismantled and taken away, leaving hardly a trace," said Lamb.

It is a little like something from Lord of the Rings, with the different sections connected by a curving wooden walkway.

The camp structure is made of gum, pine and oak from the park's alien clearing programme. There is a large central room with a gas hob, wood oven, small fridges and cooking gear. An outside area features a deep braai pit and four tents, each with a wooden deck looking into the forest, are set along the curved boardwalk.

Two toilets and two showers complete the camp. The hot water is gas-heated and the lighting solar powered.

I was struck by the enormous lampshades, and told national park staffer Mike Slayen that they looked like giant spider nests.

"That's exactly what they're supposed to be," he grinned.

Another curving wooden walkway rises up to a little elevated deck, which has a brass plate in the centre with a line engraving representing the skyline of the surrounding mountains and the names of the peaks.

I went to sleep with the flaps of the tent wide open to the forest night, and with the call of the fiery-necked nightjar so close it could have been on my pillow.

When the dawn chorus woke me the next day, I lay and watched little witogies flit about in the trees, and listened to the call of the Cape robin as it peered down at me from a branch.

I felt conflicting emotions: sad when I reflected on how many of the world's wild places we have destroyed; and grateful that some people have had the foresight to preserve a little of what is left, so that I and many thousands of others will be able to experience its beauty and peace in the consumer-mad frenzy of the 21st century.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Times on September 13, 2006

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