The three-day Blue Mountain trail combines the best of views with plush beds, delicious wines, and food – all on a memorable walk along the wilderness of the Elgin Valley.
I arrive at Wildekrans Country House in the Houw Hoek Village in time for lunch on a Thursday, to commence a weekend spent walking through the plush Elgin Valley. Breakfast is packed, but I wake up in time to have coffee before we catch the sunrise with views of the wheat fields of the Overberg in an uphill slog. We are transferred and dropped off near High Rising on the eastern border of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, the first site to be declared UNESCO’s World Heritage Site, where we commence our walk for the day.
The Groenlandberg Mountains directly north are decorated with streaks of sunshine falling into the valley past the clouds hovering above. The Hottentot Holland mountains and Sir Lowry above Grabouw to our west have direct sunshine distributed evenly, and generously.
We are in total shade courtesy of the disappearing layer of the clouds above us. The walk is a spectacle of deep red and sticky erica masoni flowers and sunbirds sucking on some other fynbos’ nectar.
We are surrounded by vast amounts of colourful mountains, from the green ones covered in fynbos to burnt grey ones in the distance. I have a feeling that we could almost go anywhere on the landscape by foot if we please. Our guide, Andreas Groenewald, points to parts of the landscape we will be walking through, as if pointing to a painting, “we will walk up that mountain to enjoy a view of the ocean on that side of the mountain, and then you will see why we call it the blue mountain trail” enthusiastically. We meander from the High Rising past the forestry, waist-high flora and views of the Hottentot mountains as we climb up in the company of wildflowers.
Perspective shifts with each step. I am drawn to long wavy wildflowers that Andreas calls “resties” (for restios). From a far distance at the bottom of the mountain, they appear to only be ankle-high but are almost my size when I stroll past them. They have bright green stalks and dark brown flowering tips in the reed family, they produce small white-ish flowers, grow up to 1.5 meters and easily go under the radar camouflaged neatly into the landscape while bringing out life to the more colourful ericas, proteas and everlastings who come in shapes and sizes.
The breeze is gentle enough to flutter away my problems, even the resties are singing a hooray in the wind with their flutter. We unpack the sandwich, fruit salad with home-made granola, fruit and yoghurt, and our guides pass around hot filter coffee and some boiled eggs to snack. We kick our feet up here for a picnic breakfast with a view of endless blue overlooking Kleinmond with the Botrivier lagoon and river mouth feeding into the ocean. From where we sit, the sky and ocean blur into more shades of blue with the now distant greyish clouds in between.
We face our backs to the Hottentots Holland mountains before we descend down into the valley past two farms with rows of top red, pink lady and granny smith apples. My mind wanders off to the lightheadedness of a cold sauvignon blanc that awaits after toiling in the sun. Last night I overindulged in the aubergine lasagna and the pears poached in red wine, before the wine tasting with the owner and winemaker from PaardenKloof (for “Valley of the Horses”) Estate. I missed a tour of the art sculptures in the garden for a deep afternoon nap. We are picked up near the apple farms in time for lunch and are transferred to South Hill Vineyard, where my luggage is neatly transferred into my sunny room overlooking rows of grapes.
After shaking the dust of the mountains off our shoes from the 18,5km walk among wildflowers and apples, we taste South Hill’s wines with the maker and owner. I opt for a few glasses of the rosé before I dip into the sparkling pool to let my body float like the lightness swirling in my head. I sip some more rosé under the trees before I go for a long bath and a nap with windows and outdoors wide open before I get ready for dinner.
The following day is another leisurely stroll on the mountains, neither the guides nor my fellow hikers are in a rush to get anywhere. Our path crossed with a leopard’s, except we arrived late to the moment. So we stopped to admire footprints. We stop several other times on this path, occasionally for coffee, crunchie cookies, fresh apple juice, soup, fruit, and juice – all of which are carried between our three guides. The difference between hiking and slackpacking is that with the latter I only have to carry a notebook, a pen, a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, water, and snacks. No roughing it here.
After each snack break, I want to lie down and nap in the gentle breeze flattering the fynbos. “What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?” I think of Henry David Thoreau’s essay, Walking, as we walk past fields of pink ericas in full bloom, cone bush and king proteas covering the mountain all the way to the Paderberg peak, where the mountains begin their descent back into the oceanic blue.
Walking down from the Paderberg Peak renewed my appreciation for flat plains. The most cheerful of my fellow German hikers had her enthusiasm curbed by the downward walk that tore off the bottom of her shoe and had her walking with a shoe sole attached by duct tape. I had never been prouder of my boots. That day, we conclude the walk with a wine tasting at Iona Vineyard before we are transferred back to South Hill Vineyards for more nibbles, wine, swimming and naps.
Naturally, the last day is more relaxed and slower, as a result of our anxiety to return to the city. We walk on the western side of the Elgin Valley that extends into the Kogelberg Nature Reserve with fynbos. We stop to feast on more views at the Dragons’ Head with snack breaks munching on the watermelon, date balls, pineapple, and hot coffee. We walked past beehives before I smell fire. “Can you smell it?” I ask Nancy, half-curious, half concerned for the pretty wildflowers in bloom. “Yes, that’s the pine,” she says picking one up and handing it over to me. Our transport arrives to drop us off at Almenkerk Vineyard for a lunch with crumbed chicken strips with the most floral sauvignon blanc.
Costs R8950 person sharing, takes groups of up to ten with social distancing observed and is about an hour’s drive from Cape Town. To book, email [email protected]