M.A.C in Africa: September 2012

It all started quite innocently, with a catch up dinner on the wednesday at the Renshaw's house (thank you Gilly and Dave for a lovely meal and having me to stay). By the end of the evening, I was signed up to do the Otter Trail with Sarah, Katherine and Chris Renshaw and their friends Darren, Louise, Simon, Graham and Kelly - they'd all been on a waiting list to do it for almost a year, but had a spare place after someone dropped out, so they very kindly invited me along.

The Otter trail is a 5 day, 42km trail, undoubtedly unique and one of the most beautiful nature trails in South Africa. It is named after the Cape clawless otter, for which we saw tracks but no otter sadly (they are very shy). The hike starts at the Storms River mouth restcamp, and ends at the small village of Natures Valley in the De Vasselot section of the park. The trail follows the Tsitsikamma coastline, and zigzags to where the coastal plateau rises to elevations of 200m, dropping back down the cliffs toward the sea and rivers. Most of the trail is covered in coastal forest and Fynbos, although the terrain and scenery changes dramatically from section to section of the trail. There are a few river crossings, the largest being the Bloukrans River on day 4 of the trail. The overnight stops are beautiful too - little wooden cabins each sleeping 6, in two 3-tired bunkbeds, with a big commune/ braai area for cooking and relaxing. There's no electricity or hot water at the cabins, but firewood and (sometimes, ha) water are available.

Storms River rest camp

Rock Dassie (Hyrax)

I spent Thursday manically packing and buying food/equipment for the hike, luckily I had most things already for my course. We started our journey in Johannesburg at 3.30am on Friday morning, and settled in for the 13 hour drive down to Tsitsikamma. Although perhaps the longer route, our drive down was beautiful, with the scenery changing from flat, open grasslands near Johannesburg to the stunning, mountainous regions further south. It was incredible driving for so many hours and seeing so few houses and people. We arrived at the Storms River rest camp late

afternoon, met up with Graham and Kelly who drove down from Durban, and settled into our very comfy wooden cabins (these ones had bedding and hot water!). We spent the evening at the Storms River mouth restaurant/bar enjoying a much needed drink and delicious fresh seafood. We saw a few Dassies - essentially big geneau pigs, very sweet, as well as a seal playing in the sea. Couldn't be a more perfect star to the trip!

DAY 1: Night at Ngubu

Group shot at the start point
L to R back row: Simon, Me, Graham, Sarah, Chris, Darren
L to R front row: Louise, Katherine, Kelly

Our first day started early with a not so useful briefing and something about tides from the warden, then we were off! One quick group photo at the start sign and we began walking all smiles winding down through a lekker woodland area, professional guide Chris Renshaw pointing out all sorts of interesting things along the way.

The highlight on day one was undoubtedly the waterfall, which I will tell you now was absolutely freezing and I most definitely did not swim. All the boys jumped right in though, and brave Katherine took one for the girls and joined them. We enjoyed our first of many "tuna sachet with crackers" lunches, and were off again on our way to Ngubu - our first night stop. The day certainly introduced us to the constant uphills, downhills and rock scrambling we would endure throughout the whole trail - I can tell you that jumpers come off pretty quick when you are trekking with a 20kg backpack up a mountainside!

The last few meter's down to Ngubu camp were very interesting indeed after a certain someone led us down the wrong trail to the camp! Poor Louise suffered the most with a fall which resulted in a thorn in her bum and a twisted knee that she battled with for rest of the hike. When we did make it to the camp though, we found two wooden huts nestled into the cliff side, opening out onto a pebble beach and and unobstructed view of the sea and cliffs beyond (the loo also had unobstructed views). Chris and I used my Bear Grills spark flint that night to light an excellent fire (ok, admittedly thanks to a little help - Bear Grills definitely soaks his wood shavings in lighter fluid, because no matter how hard we tried, our shavings just wouldn't catch! Thanks Graham for coming to the rescue with fire lighters...note to anyone doing this trip, definately take firelighters with you!) After an awesome sighting of dolphins followed by a gorgeous sunset over the sea and surrounding cliffs, the stars came into their own, and I tell you I have never seen so many stars in all my life. I can now proudly point out the southern cross and pointers and Scorpio (thanks Chris).

Day 2: Night at Scott Hut

Day 2, probably the most varied and beautiful hike of the trail, was by far the hardest, with loads of hectic uphills and downhills - talk about burning legs! It started with a steep, rather hellish climb away from Ngubu - it is amazing how quickly you can get from sea level to a 200m elevation, and similarly how quickly you forget how awful the climb is when you see the view from the top. Every so often we came across a viewing platform, one from which we had our first whale sighting - a mother and her calf (Dad my binoculars were amazing, thanks so much for them). Later, we reached the solid quartz outcrop of Skilderkrans - an incredible vantage point.

Exhausted with aching legs after what felt like an entire day climbing hills, we arrived at Scott camp late afternoon after a 8km hike (it was "just around the corner" more than a few times!). Scott Camp is on the Gleehoutbos River, and after some exploring we found fresh otter tracks! We woke up early the next morning to see if we could catch them, but alas no sightings. Sorry again Simon for teasing you and making you rush so quickly and silently across slippery stones at 6 in the morning saying that there was an otter around the corner, but it was quite funny! Although there were no otters, we were lucky to see a few large spotted genets around the camp that night, foraging for food and climbing tree's...very cool!

Day 3: Night at Oakhurst

We all woke up on day 3 with very stiff legs, and drank our morning coffee anticipating the hills ahead. Rather than hiking hills all day though, we found we actually spent most of our time in water! Our first river crossing at the Elandsbos river mouth was somewhat deeper than the map suggested...less of a paddle and more if a swim! Rushing against an incoming tide, some of the water bags ripped on the rocks and poor Darren and Sarah ended up with dripping wet backpacks. A quick dry off and change of clothes on the opposite beach and we were off again up the next mountain, walking 4km through beautiful Fynbos until the Lottering river came into view with the Oakhurst huts situated on the far bank. Having only just dried off and warmed up, I as less than enthusiastic to get wet again (everyone know's how much I hate freezing water), and I spent a good amount of time feeling my way across some slippery rocks to avoid swimming through the deeper section! I may have looked like a wally, but I stayed dry! Thanks Simon and Darren for carrying my bag across though, appreciated it ;)

View of Oakhurst camp from the other side of
the Lottering River

We finally arrived at Oakurst Camp after a very long day, and we were all looking forward to a nice cup of tea and a hot dinner. When we arrived though, after admiring the incredible view from the huts, we discovered there was no water. Chris and Darren went in search of the water tanks, but found them dry, and made an emergency call to the warden to report the problem - he assured us the water would come back soon - there was a problem with a broken pipe - and if it didn't he would bring us bottled water. Well it did "come on" if you can say that...but it come out the tap like hot chocolate!! We had all become quite accustomed at drinking brown river water, but this was like mud and there was no ways we could drink it. We pooled our last resources of water and just about had enough to make a rather dry dinner - eating "just add water" meals with not enough water was a bit challenging! (I would like to add though that when properly mixed, the dehydrated food packet were actually awesome, I highly recommend the roast lamb and mint, yum!)

YUM, our dehydrated dinners!

The dolphins at sunset made up for the lack of water though as we sat by our fire and watched them playing in the waves. There were loads of them, 10 or 15 perhaps, such an awesome sight. We sat that evening discussing the plan for day 4 - the big one - 13km and the bloukrans river crossing. They advise you cross at low tide, but for us that was 6.30am - and to get from Oakhurst camp to the river mouth was a 10km hike - an awful long way to go in the dark! So we decided to back ourselves and planned to cross at mid tide at 4pm instead. We all went to bed that night thankful not to have to wake up at 2am to walk, though all very thirsty (some of us more than others after switching whisky for water!).

Absolute joy at finally having water on the morning of
day 4, even if it was a bit brown!

Day 4: Night at Andre Camp

BIG day! We got up sparrow fart (thats super early to all you non south africans), leaving camp at 6am in search of water - the water in camp was still not running clear. The guys all trekked up to the water tanks and luckily found settled water at the top, so managed to fill all our water bottles. I'm so pleased we decided to hike in daylight hours, because the route was beautiful, winding along the coastline through stunning flora with incredible views. It was also quite a technical in parts, so I am glad we could see what we could doing, especially when scrambling up rocks and cliff faces with a drop below! We also saw a little bushbuck at one of the stream crossings, great sighting.

Planning the route to cross the Bloukrans

The Bloukrans river mouth came into view from the cliff top, and we spent some time assessing which level of crossing we could make - depending on the tide/ height of water, you have to take a certain route to cross and get out at a specific place on the rocks at the other side - and thereafter which part of the cliff you climb to get back onto the trail. The higher the water, the tougher the whole climb, hence why they advise you cross in low tide. We had decided on mid tide though, so after some careful planning and waiting a bit for the water to go down, we chose route B.

Despite freaking ourselves out about the crossing whilst standing freezing on the waters edge, when we actually did it, it wasn't as bad as we all expected it to be! The water was freezing and really took your breath away when you got in, but once you were in it wasn't too bad. We quite enjoyed bobbing in the waves after a while, and it was really exciting! I think Chris and Graham had the hardest job though swimming back and forth to get all the bags, though we rewarded them with Amarula and coffee with a nice whisky kick! The climb out and away from the river mouth was extremely challenging - rock climbing with backpacks essentially, though it sure warmed us all up pretty quick. We knew we had 3km still to go to get to camp, and enjoyed the easy route along the cliff top watching the sunset over the sea.

What we didn't expect though was the extra 1km tagged on the end that was a steep, strenuous downhill almost the in the dark! We arrived eventually at Andre Camp, all absolutely exhausted, and very glad to have a hot fire and bed.

Day 5: Night at Storms River rest camp

We set out early with heavy hearts on our last day of hiking, not wanting it to all end (well maybe not Lou and Darren who I think were very excited to be finishing!). Thanks Aunty Merry for the tipple of Amarula - it was a great morning kick in our coffee's! The hike on day 5 was magic, mostly along the cliff tops walking through shrubs and beautiful flowers. To top off the walk, we had a great sighting of the the famous Knysna Turaco, to add to our bird check list of African Oystercatchers, Sunbirds (Malachites, Doubled Collared Sunbird, Cape Sugar bird), Knysner Woodpecker and Cape Cormorants nesting on the rocks along the cliffs. After 6.5km, we saw the beach that marked the end of the hike - Natures Valley. The hardest part I think of the whole trail was walking the last 2km along the beach! Although a lovely change of terrain, our plan to walk barefoot in the waves was actually harder than you'd expect when carrying a backpack. We eventually made it to the pub & pickup point, though noteworthy was graham's man-like inability to ask for directions and the result was up walking 500m further past the pub turnoff! We made it eventually though, all dying for a nice cold beer and fresh hot food. Beers in hand, we toasted to an absolutely epic trip, and fines got handed out. We all signed Lou's head bandana and we added it to the "shoe tree". The barman gave us all the famous Otters A**hole shot, followed by well earned trail certificate.

We "saddled up" for the last time and were picked up from the pub by a lovely couple called Glen and Judy from Bay City Tours, and we travelled back to Storms River rest camp for our final night. A few of us took a stroll to see the Storms River mouth suspension bridge, which was well worth it, and we also saw a whale playing in the distance - I finally got my pic! Sadly the food at the restaurant that night wasn't as good as our first experience, but we enjoyed the evening none the less, particularly when simon ordered a Khalua coffee and pronounced it "Kalow" hahah.

Amazing hike with amazing people (Simon's Troop!), hats off to Lou who finished with a very sore knee, absolute determination! Would do the whole thing in a flash, and so looking forward to the adventure all together...Kruger hike, orange river, Drakensburg...bring it on! Thanks again Chris, Katherine and Sarah for the invite, had the best time ever.

Next stop...Botswana for 2 weeks, then my course begins on 3rd October. Missing everyone loads, but having an amazing time and loving every minute of it xx

P.s - Here are a few pics, many more on my facebook page :)