A couple of weekends ago, we joined our friends L and V and Little N for a hike at Jonkershoek Nature Reserve outside Stellenbosch. Not having been there before, we were curious to see whether our friends’ enthusiastic accounts of the splendours of hiking in those mountains were true. Indeed they were!
The day of the local municipal elections – Wednesday, 18 May 2011 – was declared a public holiday. Having done our civic duty even before breakfast by having our thumbnails marked with ultraviolet ink (to prevent double-voting) and casting our ballots at the local town hall, we took advantage of the fabulous weather to head…
Having walked from Constantia Nek to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens with our friends L and V, who was carrying little N in a soft carry-pouch (see route here), we were keen to try the approach from the opposite direction, Newlands Forest. The two of us had tackled that route about two years ago. At the time,…
“How ’bout we meet at Constantia Nek on the weekend and walk to Kirstenbosch Gardens for lunch?” asked our friend L, one fine week in June. “We did that hike last weekend, and it was quite wonderful.” “An excellent idea. See you there!” When Sunday came around, we duly met V and L at the…
During winter in Cape Town, the famous blue skies of Africa are often hidden behind water-logged dark-grey clouds that trail curtains of rain across the peninsula, causing erosion on exposed hillsides and widespread flooding in low-lying areas. In the last three months, our weekends had rarely coincided with a bit of free time and a…
At the start of May, longing to get away from computers, technology and deadlines by spending some time among shady trees and burbling streams instead, we went for a short ramble around Newlands Forest. As always, it was peaceful and serene in this old, well-established forest that is understandably popular among hikers, dog-walkers and trail-runners.…
At the end of April, after a couple of days of rain, the weather cleared sufficiently to venture outdoors, and we decided to re-try the river ramble in Silvermine West. We had explored this path in March, after long months of no rain, when it had been disappointingly dry and dusty (Silvermine river ramble and…
In September last year, we’d set out to explore the Hillcrest Path at Silvermine West, but we’d been caught out by the rain and the fog, and reluctantly did a u-turn on the mountain. Yesterday, however, was the perfect weather for hiking – relatively cool, a slight breeze, a bit of cloud cover, and just…
The day after I had had my head shaved for a good cause at the 2011 CANSA Shavathon, we decided that the weather was just too nice to stay indoors in front of the computer, catching up on emails and work. Quite Frankly, work would have to Wait. Notice the lower-case ‘work’ – putting it…
“Help! Get them off me! Help!!” I leapt to my feet, almost splashing hot tea over myself as I thrust the mug at Richard. He was staring at me in amazement, as I swatted and flicked frantically at my legs, dancing on the spot, and squirming desperately to check the backs of my legs as…
On Saturday morning, over a week ago now, we were rather keen to see more of the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve after the previous week’s wonderful hike to Sirkelsvlei (and, of course, to make good use of our new Wild Card). After consulting the map, we decided to tackle the slightly more strenuous…
At the start of December last year, we felt like exploring Silvermine East a little more. To our delight, the weather was far more inviting than on the previous occasion we had visited the Southern Peninsula (see the story of our exceedingly wet hike to the Amphitheatre in November last year).
Ever since I had joined a group of friends on an extra-long hike from the Silvermine Reservoir, up to the Elephant’s Eye Cave and even further up to the top of the Constantiaberg with its VHF mast in July last year (see description of hike here), hubby and I had wanted to do the hike…
“Do you feel like doing the Amphitheatre hike tomorrow morning?” inquired hubby on Friday night. “Yeah, definitely.” “Great, so how about we get up reallllly early…” “Erm… how early is early?” “How about 5h30?” “What?!” “We’ll have a quick breakfast, and then it’ll take us about 45 minutes to get to the booms at Silvermine,…
On Saturday morning, the 13th of November, the weather was so nice that we decided to head south towards the Silvermine Nature Reserve for a gentle hike around the eastern section. Besides, I needed a break from the computer, where I’d spent the entire week sorting and editing all the photos I took during the…
Grains of Sand 
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