HIKERS ARE NOT AS INTREPID AS I THOUGHT, BUT GOLLY NICE.

HIKERS ARE NOT AS INTREPID AS I THOUGHT, BUT GOLLY NICE.

I thought that hikers were a bunch of hardy folk used to the bundu and well able to look after themselves.
It turns out that this is not entirely true, many are indeed resolute but a significant portion of them are eejits of the first order and are prone to flinging themselves off cliffs, twisting their bits and have a tendency to wander in an exhausted daze into the lodge in the hope of rescue from their torment.

On several occasions, small round ladies straining under large backpacks have arrived at the ‘ short cut’ sign which shall be changed to ‘emergency exit only’ as shorter it is not, and their sad little faces when informed of the torment still to come is heart wrenching. But the big burly men are the worst. Generally they have some long suffering woman in tow that they have guided into disaster due to their manly attitude. They get lost and naturally blame me and my marking for their lack of tracking skills. Anyway I have now remarked the trail and frankly if they get lost now they should enter their names onto the Darwin list of endangered eejits

However hikers as a group are fit, leggy people with great bums who almost welcome disasters that occur from inclement weather to power cuts. Nothing phases these wildly enthusiastic people with their boots and sticks, we have had one group that was turned back at the waterfall after a storm and could not cross but other than that they have all been very intrepid indeed.




HUTS BITE ME IN THE BUM

When I decided to build a trail I went to some of my neighbors to have a peak at what was required. Wimpie the lady who was in fact instrumental in persuading me to become a trail owner in the first place, is the proud proprietor of the farm Wathaba, a well know and long standing trail with her camp situated on the Elands river.
This is an eclectic group of structures that she and her son Guys have added to and expanded over many years into a veritable warren of different structures with donkey water heaters and galvanized buckets converted into sinks, dead charming, wooden and wattle lean-too’s with braai places and bunks all quite primitive/rural, difficult to really appreciate the extent of it from a brief visit but the overall impression was of a sort of permanent well organized camp.

Anyway the long and the short of it was that it all seemed quite ‘knocked together’ and quite easy to do, so as the entire trail was still to be constructed I put it on a back burner, BIG mistake.

It is only when faced with the reality of a ‘hut’ that one can really plumb the depths of what actually is required, My memory of Roberg Hiking huts were clouded by romance, words like shack, hovel, cabin, shed and lean-to had distorted my judgment.

Albert Bossert the trail builder arrived with his team of lads equipped with hoes, picks and implements of destruction and disappeared with them into the undergrowth. At first I was a bit over his shoulder as he hammered his way through the farm but I soon realized that he is an artist and his feeling for the trail, where it should go and at what pace was masterful.

The weeks and months drifted past with Albert coming and going with various ladies in tow, he is a real old goat, admirably so, and the path got longer and longer till I could no longer avoid doing my side of the thing.

I had not been entirely idle mind you; I had toiled long and hard at finding some original way to build a hut, as they were to be situated in a most spectacular place and deserved something special. But tucked away in the rocks as they were the complications and difficulties were too soon apparent. What looked great on the computer and in my head, just did not fit into the space allocated, concepts had to be changed to fit the reality all along the line. There was the issue of what to do with the poo poo. I could not just dig a drain away as it was all stone and thus needed to be transported away in long pipes, these needed to be disguised and such were just the first of many things that I just had not associated with building a couple of huts.

At the end of the day in despair at the cost of thatching, the difficulties with weather and the eccentricity of the site, I had an epiphany in the local junkyard. There among the skeletons of farmers dreams was a mound of old steel frame windows, not my favorite architectural feature of the modern world but none the less the answer to my problem of making a comfy bedroom in the rocks, I would make the huts entirely of windows, so one could lie after a long hike nursing ones bits and stare over the wonders of the Skurweberg.

This having been decided and after some negotiation which also suited my tight wad inclinations I carted piles and piles of rusty crap back to the farm, and dumped this at the feet of my incredulous staff with steel brushes and grinder to clean and paint.

But this was in fact just the start; one overlooks the many years of steady progress that had culminated in the smooth machine that Wimpie boasted.
Huts require a lot of kit, from cups to bog roll holders it is endless.

The second mistake I made was to underestimate the enthusiasm of hikers. We were well on our way, sort of about a couple of months from completion I thought anyway. Being a lodge owner now for a few years I thought that if I sent a few ‘invites’ to the local hiking pages and clubs to introduce the trail, they might, if I was lucky, fit me in in a few months time.

Not so, I had unleashed a torrent of wild fervor to have a go. They were elbowing each other aside to get in. So now I had imposed a further state of panic in my heart by creating a deadline.

I had not retreated from the maddening crowd for this! NO NO NO.

Well we pulled through, just, and there were a few shortcomings that were gleefully pointed out to me, everybody is a critic. I have now done all the ‘helpful hints’ that have been lavished on me and the cries of lost and confused hikers, the glasses have been bought and another hot plate installed among other things and the pointed comments in the hikers book have changed from bitter recriminations to songs of praise.