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| Celia -when it was still a Forest! |
The Background
Our decision to visit and walk the Fish River was made at about the same time that I decided that it was finally time to close down the Guest House and run the flatlet as a self-catering facility.
Early in January, I phoned the Namibian Wildlife Resorts on (+27) 21 422 3761 (or e-mail Lionel on LKatjitundu@nwr.com.na). They are pretty good at responding and provide all the information you need to make bookings. We were lucky to get a place starting on 21 June for 5 days (although this was in fact the last week of school for the kids).
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| Peak at Radar Station |
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| View of Signal Hill from the Radar Station |
This done, the hike was officially going to happen. We discussed weekly walks in the Cape area culminating in a hike overnight a couple of weeks before forgetting of course about all the realities such as Fiona's Masters which had to be in some time in March, and then once completed had to be corrected before her graduation, and exam time for Lauren and Guy - not to mention Soccer and Cricket matches on either Saturday or Sunday.
The rest of this page covers the hikes that we did before we started the main hike. If you would like to see additional pics, just link through (sometimes its worth right clicking and opening in a new tab to avoid leaving this page).
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| Old Generator House |
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| Tokai Forest, Constantia |
Well, even so, we did manage a few local hikes - the first one (17/1/11) to
Celia Forest (now Celia hill, I guess as a lot of the forest has been cut down to make way for indigenous foliage!) and the waterfall. This is a relatively short hike (a couple of hours) and one that we'd done before. Next the Sentinel and the
Radar Station (23/1/11 - also before Fiona was available). A bit more challenging and on a particularly hot day. At that stage we were still taking the dogs, but the hot day on the road to the radar station burnt Ben's pads so badly that he took weeks to recover and sadly (for him) lost his hiking colours!
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| Cleared Area |
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| Elephant's Eye |
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| From the Eye looking out |
After these, the walks diminished a little while we got use to School and all that goes with it but the walks that we did to tended to be a little more challenging.
Elephant's Eye (30/4/11) was the first one where Fiona joined us and this was lots of uphill until you finally reached what you thought was the peak but no, there was still to be some more up hill! It starts at the bottom of the Constaniaberg in Tokai forest and you walk through forests and some open areas until you get to the fire viewpoint at the top. There is still a couple of kms to go before you reach the cave which is Elephant's Eye. The views from there were beautiful and it made it all worth while!
The next walk was
Signal Hill (9/5/11). Both Lauren and Guy had done it before (by the light of the moon and in the day time) but I hadn't and we decided to invite Brett - Fiona's Brother's son.
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| Fiona, Lauren and Brett |
Signal Hill was a fairly easy hike although there are a few ladders that you have to climb on the way and admittedly the first part is surprisingly steep. Of course the views from the top are breathtaking, overlooking Table mountain on the one side, the Cape peninsula on the other and Cape Town central on a third. It was great to finally spend a day with Brett who is here at UCT.
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| Team photo on Signal Hill | |
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| Hout Bay through the valley |
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We had planned to do another hike up the front of Table mountain and then down through Kirstenbosch but unfortunately Brett's exams made us decide to postpone this till later. We decided that we needed to do one last longer hike before the main event which was now only a month away (with the children having exams over the next month so no more hikes).
We decided on a hike which was supposed to start at Silvermine and walk to the area above Hout Bay and then back to Silvermine. It seemed crazy driving all that way just to walk back to Hout Bay so we started from
Hout Bay to Silvermine (22/5/11). The first part of the hike was pretty steep but after that, we had a good opportunity to walk distance rather than just up mountains (although there were a fair number of hills involved).
Again the views starting from Hout Bay, then over the Cape Flats and then over Noordhoek were great. After this we felt that we were now reasonably well prepared, although an overnight with packs would have helped to get an idea of what we were in for.
Early in January, I phoned the Namibian Wildlife Resorts on (+27) 21 422 3761 (or e-mail Lionel on LKatjitundu@nwr.com.na). They are pretty good at responding and provide all the information you need to make bookings. We were lucky to get a place starting on 21 June for 5 days (although this was in fact the last week of school for the kids).
After these, the walks diminished a little while we got use to School and all that goes with it but the walks that we did to tended to be a little more challenging.
Signal Hill was a fairly easy hike although there are a few ladders that you have to climb on the way and admittedly the first part is surprisingly steep. Of course the views from the top are breathtaking, overlooking Table mountain on the one side, the Cape peninsula on the other and Cape Town central on a third. It was great to finally spend a day with Brett who is here at UCT.
We had planned to do another hike up the front of Table mountain and then down through Kirstenbosch but unfortunately Brett's exams made us decide to postpone this till later. We decided that we needed to do one last longer hike before the main event which was now only a month away (with the children having exams over the next month so no more hikes).
