Text and photographs by Marion Whitehead.
Source: This article was taken from the April 2011 issue of Getaway Magazine
The raw beauty of the Cederberg Mountains, eroded into strange shapes over time, is the dramatic backdrop to a series of community-based slackpacking trails.
Marion Whitehead tackled a Cederberg Heritage Route trail and had her horizons stretched.
A big, fat hen filled the horizon. Was I seeing things? You get weird shapes in the rocks of the Cederberg Mountains, but I swear the chicken-shaped outcrop flapped her wings a little. Or was it just the shimmering heat?
Hiking in the Cederberg Wilderness Area east of Clanwilliam is like entering another dimension. Step through a rocky portal and it’s easy to believe you’ve crossed into another world. It’s a place where nature rules in all its majesty, with krantzes and kloofs bisecting piles of rocks casually deposited in gigantic heaps millions of years ago. People tread lightly on this land, and have done so for millennia, as evidenced by the rock art treasures littering its rocky overhangs.
Our journey had started in the 21st century when we climbed out of a comfortable vehicle at the top of the Pakhuis Pass. We immediately lost about 100 years when we climbed into an old-fashioned donkey cart with our luggage for a bumpy ride along an old mountain pass to the remote Moravian mission village of Heuningvlei 12 kilometres away. Our driver, Devon Viljoen, was not very chatty. We soon discovered why. It took all his concentration – and a lot of yelling and tongue clicking – to keep the team of four donkeys moving forward. Our 5×4’s ‘spare’ donkey tethered to her mates was cute but not always co-operative.
When the going got steep, Devon stopped so we could get out and walk to spare the donkeys. The grotesquely eroded rocks and vast views into the valley beyond kept us entertained while we followed the cart. Our joy at jumping back in was short-lived as we bounced wildly down a hill on a narrow track above a gaping chasm going at what felt like top speed.
It was our turn to keep quiet and concentrate madly. The late afternoon sun was turning the rocks a golden honey hue when we rounded a corner and saw Heuningvlei beyond. The road into the valley was really steep this time and we enthusiastically climbed out to walk while Devon guided the donkeys down, his old car-tyre brake full on and his face a study of concentration.
Community life
Heuningvlei is one of a ring of outlying hamlets to the main Moravian mission village of Wupperthal. The network of five heritage hiking trails is a community-based initiative aimed at giving more employment options to the folk who have farmed in this harsh environment for generations, growing rooibos tea, potatoes, sugar beans and onions.
Tourists’ rands are spread as widely as possible. My friend Pauline Lourens and I stayed with a very hospitable Anna Ockhuis in her charming thatched house, drinking tea at her kitchen table while she told us fascinating stories about life in this sleepy hollow of 25 families. She excused herself to watch 7de Laan on television while we tucked into a hearty, home-cooked dinner provided by another household. Our en suite bathroom boasted one of the few indoor toilets in the hamlet and at bedtime, we said goodnight to an old poster of Diana, Princess of Wales, which hung in pride of place on the bedroom wall next to a ‘God is love’ sign.
We had a different community trail guide each day. Barend Ockhuis led the way out of the village early the next morning while the smoke of breakfast fires still curled from chimneys and wafted above the cloud of white pear blossom dotting practically every garden. Like most residents of Heuningvlei, he’s descended from the original Ockhuizen who settled here nearly 200 years ago.
We stopped at an overhang to look at rock paintings and then headed up a sandy path to the hills, Barend leading the way with the assurance of someone who has lived all his life in this wonderland. He paused to tell us the folk names of mountain fynbos flowers splashing their bright blue, yellow and pink blossoms across the landscape. ‘Speldekussing,’ he indicated a stand of statuesque rocket pincushions pointing their spiky red petals at the deep-blue sky.
As the temperature soared into the 30s, we paused to catch our breath at the occasional patches of shade cast by pillars of boulders. Lunch at a small river pool brought icy relief as we dropped our daypacks and plunged in up to our necks, our fingers aching from the cold.
Each turn in the path brought another surprise: an endangered cedar tree growing in a crevice, a lonely shepherd’s hut, a pair of klipspringers dashing for cover, signs of a bush pig’s foraging. The leopard Barend had seen the previous month while leading a group of overseas tourists declined to put in an appearance. By the time we reached a stream rushing through a tumble of boulders in the narrow canyon leading to Grasvlei, the village before our overnight stop, the light was turning golden.
At Brugkraal, a donkey cart had delivered our luggage and was waiting to take Barend back to Heuningvlei – it’s still a common form of transport on these back roads. We flopped down on the shady stoep of a comfortable guest cottage belonging to Evert and Regina Manuel, a genial couple who were the epitome of generous country hospitality.
A beach in the mountains
After the magic of the previous days, the third day was disappointing, with a long walk along a dusty road in the heat, broken by a short detour to see the magnificent Grasvlei waterfall plunging over a rocky ledge in an otherwise dry landscape. Things got more interesting in Sassakloof leading to Wupperthal, with deep pools of water beckoning. Our guide, Franco Swartz, stopped at one with a white, sandy beach and Pauline plunged in fully clothed for relief from the baking sun. Our sodden clothes provided a natural cooling effect as they dried rapidly in the heat while we continued down the kloof to Wupperthal. The Moravian village of whitewashed, thatched cottages has changed little since the 1830s, apart from the odd satellite dish decorating a hipped gable. The church’s strict code of conduct has loosened up a little too and you’ll see some youngsters smoking in the street on a Sunday, something that was once strictly forbidden.
We ate our evening meal on the veranda under bluegum trees at Lekkerbekkie, the little tearoom squeezed between the info centre and a quaint one-roomed museum. After buying local rooibos tea, we wandered up the avenue of trees framing the great Moravian church where the evening service had just finished. People were leaving with their Bibles tucked under their arms in their tranquil village just as their great-grandparents had done a hundred years ago.
Lying in my simply furnished bedroom in the church guesthouse on our last night in the Cederberg, this peaceful image was replaced by the weird and wonderful rockscapes we’d passed through: a dragon rearing its scaly head;
Miss Piggy on top of the cliff opposite, queening it over her minions, petrified in Table Mountain sandstone; a handsome Adonis bust atop a column of rock; an Aztec king in full headdress, guarded by a warrior with high cheekbones… This is a land where your imagination is set free and boundaries fall away. It’s a challenging experience not to be missed
Save our cedars
The endemic Clanwilliam cedars (Widdringtonia cedarbergensis) that were once abundant in these mountains are on the brink of extinction and seeing mature trees growing in the wild is a noteworthy tick for plant lovers in this part of the Cape Floral Kingdom World Heritage Site. An initiative to replant these aromatic trees in the mountains has resulted in an annual cedar-planting event at Heuningvlei, hosted by Bushmans Kloof with CapeNature and the Botanical Society of SA. This year it takes place on 21 May 2011. For more info, tel 021-481-1860, email.
Travel planner
Getting there
From Cape Town, take the N7 north and turn off at the R364 to Clanwilliam, where you leave your vehicle at the Clanwilliam Living Landscape Project in Park Street.
When to go
Winter is the best time for hiking in the Cederberg as summer temperatures soar into the high 30s and water courses dry up. Spring brings a burst of colourful flowers and in autumn the evenings are crisp but not as cold as in the winter.
The hikes
There are four slackpacking trails from which to choose. They start at the top of Pakhuis Pass with a donkey cart ride along Thomas Bain’s old mountain pass to Heuningvlei. The three-night Wupperthal Trail featured here was 12 km/15 km/12 km and was a well laid out route with cleverly chosen gradients which were never steep for too long.
The four-night Groot Kraka-douw Trail is 20 km/15 km/ 13 km over Krakadouw Nek. The three-night Klein Kraka-douw Trail is 4 km/12 km/12 km and the three-night Pakhuis Trail is 16 km/12 km/12 km.
All routes include a guided tour of the Sevilla rock art trail near the Pakhuis Pass. It’s a series of sites with a remark-able range of images, from dinosaur-like creatures and dancing women to a dainty zebra foal.
Where you stay
Options range from comfortable guesthouses to community-owned guest cottages where bathrooms are usually shared and there are three or four beds to a room. In Heuningvlei, we had an en suite room at Anna Ockhuis’s home, but larger hiking groups are accommodated in a new backpackers’ lodge with dormitory-style rooms.
Meals provided by the farming folk are hearty, with generous helpings and some home-grown fare.
Who to contact
Cederberg Heritage Trails,
tel 027-482-2444, email Website
The vehicle we used
We drove to the Cederberg via the R27 on the West Coast to do some spring flower spotting and didn’t feel the extra kilometres in the super-comfortable Nissan Pathfinder 2,5-litre turbo diesel. The touch screen on the central control panel instantly tells you what your consumption is. We got 11,1 litres/ 100 km – not bad for a vehicle as powerful as this. www.nissan.co.za
| More info on the town of Clanwilliam | More info on the Cederberg Region |
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