Words by Camilla Howard
An early morning swim across the shark-infested Breede River was our first port of call for the 13th of December! We decided to drive all the way up to Malgas to do so, thinking this would be the safest option. We have since been told on numerous occasions that Zambezi sharks have been tagged even further up than Malgas! Once in Witsands we were met by Loraine Martin a local resident and relative of Michael’s who took some pics and interviewed us for the local gazette. We started walking mid-morning towards our destination of the Duiwenhoks River. It was really easy going, despite the soft sand and sharp rocky sections (there were ropes to help us up over these for a change!). Welcome respite after the De Hoop-Infanta trek.
At one point we were forced up onto a cliff as the tide prevented us walking around the bottom and next to a private home we found an abandoned old bus! A mystery how it got down there.
We arrived at the river late-afternoon and Mike was worried about crossing it at high tide. We’d been told there would be loads of holiday-makers there with boats to offer us a ride across but sadly this was not the case. We made our way about 2km up river and still we found no one who could help. We signaled to Jordyn who was waiting at the jetty on the other side of the river to go and look for someone with a canoe or boat and he tried Puntjie but unfortunately the people there were more concerned with their privacy than helping a brother out.
We decided to chill out and wait for an hour so we picked a log on the banks of the river and tried to catch a few winks. I kept looking at the river, itching to just dive in and swim and at that moment Mike came up with a brainwave. He suggested we roll the huge log into the river and use it as a raft. At least that way we could balance the heavy backpacks on it. We got very wet but it worked! Jords then drove us to Rosemary’s cottage, Koensrust ,which is definitely a best kept secret and fishing spot in this part of the world. We will definitely be back sometime in the future!
Our walk from Puntjie to Blombos was fairly plain sailing along the beach. We passed numerous private farms on the hills on our left with incredible houses built right along the edges every couple of kilometers. At Blombos we had to find our way up to the public road and when we eventually did our vehicle was nowhere to be found and we couldn’t reach Jordyn. We ended up walking an extra 5km in the searing late afternoon heat on a dusty dirt road towards the main-ish road. En route we met a Cape Town couple who were on their way to their house at Blombos and they kindly offered to call him from their landline as there was no reception. Eventually they got hold of him and directed him to where we were waiting on the main drag. A long but very beautiful day again. We returned to Koensrust to sleep for the night and we prepared the alikreukel (giant sea snails) which we’d collected that day. Mike spent his childhood holidays in this area so he knew all the tricks. We boiled them for 20 minutes and then shook out the shells and removed everything but the end ‘sucker’ part which was finely sliced an sauteed in butter and added to some spaghetti and finished with roasted pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan cheese. So simple and so delicious!
The next morning we were dropped off back at Blombos and we rounded the point to Jongensfontein following fishermans paths the whole way. A really worthwhile walk for anyone who goes to Stilbaai on holiday. We saw stunning coves and very impressive caves some of which were closed off by archeologists. Watch out for the snakes though! I came very close to standing on a big puffy’s head, he was so well camouflaged in the thick grassy path I very nearly didn’t see him. Jongensfontein was jampacked with holiday-makers, as was Stilbaai. It was nice to have people to chat to as we made our way from the former to the latter. The highlight of that day were the ancient fish traps which were visible at low tide.
We swam across the river in Stilbaai and then met Jordyn for lunch at Stables where we ended up returning 3 times after making friends with our waitress Lu-Lu. Between Stilbaai and Gouritzmond, the coastline above the high tide mark is mostly owned by private farmers. It took 3 hours of scouting and 4x4ing on terrible roads to find meeting points for the next 2 days. The first farmer was not very accommodating but the next few people we met along the way were very friendly and helpful and allowed our support vehicle access to the coast to fetch us at 20km intervals between Stilbaai and Gourtizmond. The beaches were very clean despite being full of humans sunning themselves over their Christmas breaks.
We got caught by the in-coming tide and had to hot foot it across some rocks to avoid becoming trapped in the sandstone coves. Mike’s sister and her boyfriend joined us for the last 20km before the mouth of Gouritz. Swimming across it was a big milestone for us! We’d reached our goal of 2012 and it was time for a well deserved break for Christmas and New years. We packed the truck one last time and drove back to Cape Town. It was the first time we had seen the N2 in ages and it was quite surreal driving the distance we’d covered in the previous few weeks.
