Words by Camilla Howard
Traveling up the garden route numerous times as kids, Mike and I had always dreamt about staying at those cottages you see on the banks of the Kaaimans river on that windy pass with all the speed traps as you enter Wilderness. We managed rent one and while the two of us and Mike’s parents walked around from Victoria Bay to Wilderness on the train tracks, Jordyn rowed all our kit across to our cottage and then came to meet us at the bridge. Just after we’d cross the Kaaimans river on the Wilderness side of the bridge we found an amazing cave with a real live caveman living in it. It was like a fairytale wonderland, full of hanging shells and rooms full of interesting arty pieces and looked after by a very quirky man. We had an evening paddle boat ride up the Kaaimans and then Mike’s mum made us her famous spag bol. None of us got much sleep that night, the N2 highway is directly across the river and all we could hear were the airbrakes of the big trucks shuddering followed by the acceleration into first and second gear all through the night! We were very grateful to be moving on to Wilderness the next day.
Jordyn joined us for the first time and the 5 of us walked 20km from Wilderness to Sedgefield. We found a whale carcass about halfway there which smelled horrendous. Poor thing. Rose from Sedgefield Tourism met us at the river mouth and organised the lifesavers to help Gretchie and Franci across. The rest of us swam and a few locals joined us from the river to Myoli beach. Our rest day was one of my favourite days paddling up the river in wilderness at sunset and swimming in the fresh, warm water.
Rose organised for a group of children to walk along with us from Myoli Beach to Buffalo Bay. We gave prizes for the girl and boy who collected the most trash. Our friend Mike Brewis came along from Buffalo Bay to Brenton on Sea where the ratepayers assoc met us for lunch. That afternoon we headed around to Knysna to catch a ferry back across to the mouth of the Knysna lagoon so that we could walk the Featherbed section. The following day we started walking from the Eastern Knysna head to the Noetsie river. Again, everyone we’d chatted to told us this section was impossible to walk. A facebook fan, Nan, eventually put us in touch with a local mountaineer, Drew, who then led us to Elbie Burger, a hiker in Plett and together we worked out a plan to get us from Knysna to Plett.
We were lucky enough to spend a night at the Knysna Elephant Park where we walked with the Elephants and literally slept with them in our ‘lounge’ for the night! We made it very close to Noetsie with a lot of precarious rock climbing and gulley-swimming and then got to a point where we had to climb up and out. We ended up landing on Pezula land, effectively tresspassing. It took a bit of explaining but they allowed us out and onto the road to Noetsie eventually. We were based in Knysna at Mike Brewis’ house on Thesen Island which was a real treat and the next day we visited Oakhill school, spoke to the local radio station and did an interview with the Herald. After our admin morning we were shown a route through the Knysna forest by Christian Smit of Cape Pine which took us from in line with Noetsie to Kranzhoek. The forest walk through the plantations and the indigenous parts was stunning despite the rain. The next day from Kranzhoek to Robberg was definitely one of the most spectacular. Kranshoek is on my top 5 places to return to, for sure. Tough terrain but well worth all the effort. Walking from Robberg through Plettenberg Bay was plain sailing after the previous few days and it was great to have company from Keurbooms to Natures Valley. Elbie and her hiking friends came along for the day and a quick stop at the Salt river mouth for the futile mission of trying to remove a tractor tire from the river was my highlight. As well as being a hammarhead shark breading ground, it is a stunning river.
