THE OTTER TRAIL

Some time ago my SO (Significant Other) Anne managed to get 6 slots on the famous Otter Trail and as a trail owner I felt it behoove to take this opportunity to experience the opposition. The money was paid, friends were invited and plans were afoot.

Well the friends all backed out with various ailments and commitments and for a while it seemed it would be SO and I alone. Guise my neighbor and collaborator in the great Num-num enterprise and Albert who built the trails were however confirmed.

Anne assured me that a lady in her office had offered her free access to a cupboard full of every camping need the finest adventure shops had to offer and we should not get our own, fair enough!

After some delay and politics the kit arrived and looked immediately to be a bit small for the task envisioned but I loaded 10 or 15 kilo’s of metal into one and hung it on my back.

My first and immediate impression was not good. It was very heavy and I had yet to leave the house! We got to the middle of the dam about 250 yards down the drive and Anne and I were almost in blows over the sticks, one of which I flung into the dam in a rage. Another 250 yards and the straps of the bag were cutting through my spine sending agonizing bolts of pain into the top of my head. I threw a sissy fit!

I stopped, I paused in this mad pursuit for wisdom, I turned to Anne and said with great emphasis, “ There is no way in hell that I am going to be a beast of burden for a further 2 seconds let alone for 5 days” I paused for effect, “ The hike is cancelled and that’s that” I returned to the lodge a relieved and happy man at my decision.

Ahh but the spells we weave to deceive the heart, I could not look myself in the eye, and this was wek after all, not just the flip hopes of a youth. A duty and when duty calls my guilt ridden Anglo, western, protestant, catholic and Jewish angels all sing the same song.
So I loaded the same burden into my old bag I use for picnics which is fitted with all the right straps and harnesses and wandered around the estate to give it a fair go, and it wasn’t to bad, I was encouraged and went to the lowveld to do a little further research into the murky world of backpacks.

There are many and as with so much in life you get what you pays for, the expensive ones are very comfortable and the comfort decreases proportionately to the number attached, but after a lot of wondering about I settled on a Vaude which the First Assent salesman talked about with some reverence and for which I also managed to strike a keen deal. It turned out to be a very very good purchase.
I was warming to the experience. There are loads of toys to add to the ‘light weight’ of the bag, starting with sleeping bags each proclaiming to be warmer lighter and snugglier than the next. Then no hiker can go without the fancy little gas stove and a couple of gas cylinders, a survival bag is considered a must, which is just a big bag to put your bag into if you need to float it. There are hats and boots and fancy dried meals with titanium fork and knife sets, very light! There are head torches and walking sticks special socks and extra crocks, just in case, so that gram by gram you fill your 70lt bag with a great amount of dead weight that corresponds to the wilty feeling of your credit card.

Fear is a great motivator so I was also striding about the farm carrying my weighted bag about in preparation for what I was convinced would be a very physical challenge, something I have always avoided. Never liked making life more difficult and was in no way convinced that massive exertion was a source of pleasure!

Days slipped past fast and soon enough we were booked for a hot shower and bed for before and after and were standing filled with dread at the check in point being issued with maps, very long ones. More loot was extracted for random charges invented by who knows who and we were directed to a death by power point video film of the trail that Anne and I thought life was too short to tolerate. This production which I suspect was a source of great pride to the minions of the great SAN Parks organization was written by a bore, shakily filmed by some nephew of a minister, narrated by a monotone droner and the hikers featured were, to be kind, not the finest examples of humanity that might have been chosen.

Albert was however fascinated and insisted on watching the entire 45-minute production that filled him with dread about the river crossings, as he cannot swim! We however loaded up, Anne and I had divided the load she carried the clothes and I carried the rest! Seemed fair at the time.

Day one was a doddle, a very short easy start in fact a bit short and after the horror stories about kilometers of rock scrabbling that had already literally killed someone the new improved Otter start was a big relief and Hut 1 was soon occupied. Hut 2 was soon also filled with a group of German yoots on exchange at Stelenbosch University who shared their hut with a young couple from Israel. I noticed that they kept their gas stove outside, just to be sure!

Disaster number 1: we forgot to bring fire lighters and disaster 2: poor old Albert and Guise had left their first days fresh meat reward behind which must have been torture for Guise particularly, a trencher man of note, as the OG’s (Otter Germans) had half a cow on the fire. Zey ver not lads that ver scared of heavy loads unt had over 25 kilograms over each shoulder, I sag at the thought with my 15.

The OG’s had settled a bottle of clear liquor and were very quite when we left through the fresh morning settling into our string, I led with my 2 sticks like a demented burgundy armadillo plodding with a strange determination past the wonders of the world with Anne chattering cheerfully with her back up retinue of Albert and Guise behind.
My 2 high-tech stokies proving a great boon to the toil of the hike and would be recommended to the dullest to adopt. These sticks with their shock absorbers were a revelation and eased the way considerably, hoiking me up and balancing me down, good things, get yours say I.

I am ashamed to admit that even after so few days the memories fade, caves and coves with startling blue sea crystal pools, waterfalls falling into the sea, climbs and dips, climbs and dips through forest and beach with the craw of the Knysna Lourie and the red flash of their wings as they came to grok us, all becomes an endless dream with no beginning or end to the wonders we humped past.

We stopped and smoked and chatted about all the world and it felt good, we dined in paradise, we too to soon arrived at the next camp where again the lads had to settle on smash and tuna as we feasted on fillet. During the day we had discovered disaster number 3.

We had after much debate agreed that I would leave my car at the end and we all went together in Albert’s to the start and in the funk of fear of weight I had in a moment of madness asked Albert to keep my keys in his vehicle, these being essential to have for the return trip, very stupid and we all laughed and laughed.

Each hut is identical, constructed in 1964 with great attention to making them as utilitarian, basic and uncomfortable as can be achieved on a modest budget. Each wooden hut is ekzakedly 4 x 5 with 2 walls taken with 3 tiered bunk planks. In no stretch of the imagination can these horizontal torture machines be called beds. True there are some slightly malleable black leather/plastic slabs of some substance on the sleeping racks which could be mistaken by the uninitiated to be mattresses, but they could conceivably build battleships with them. All discussed the first couple of nights at some length and the consensus was unanimous, baaaad.

So day followed day, Guise’s gay camping shelves were mocked and envied, poor old Albert fell by the wayside with the flue and had to drop out, the horrors of the first river crossing turned out to be a bit of rock hoping which Albert in his fear and flue had departed for at first light.

Disaster number 4; I ran out of fags, Oh woe is me but Guise had shag and fags too so all was not lost, PHEW.

The rest of us were smug and blessed with perfect conditions all was wonderful! And the bag was getting lighter all the time.

The trail started to pattern out, the OG’s left late and charged past us, the Israelites left early and dropped out at the second river crossing, interscene bickering and the need for showers and beds being blamed.

We were fortunate that our low tide time was a convenient 11.30 am but nonetheless we had to push to cover the last few kilometers and this one was not as smooth as the first.


Disaster 5.
The Bloukrans River crossing is a thing of legend but we were there just as the tide was turning where we found the OG's frolicking just knee deep in it. Congratulating ourselves on our swift and rigorous hiking we stripped down, carelessly strung our boots and kit onto the bag and waded through what was but a trifling little babbling brook. When we were at that critical point halfway over, the trifling thing at our feet rose with a rush and a roar and strong underflow up to our chins sweeping us about and causing much consternation, snatching one of Anne’s shoes into the now murky depths and giving me a swift lesson in respect for the sea. Both of us got a huge adrenalin rush that propelled us like demented monkeys up the vertical rock face to a sunny spot safe on the heights to inspect the damage. Guise who had lagged behind waded through knee deep after us with not a drop of wet where no wet should be, the lucky bugger.

My magnificent Vaude backpack performed with great resolve keeping our kit dry and though the food compartment flooded and soaked our white gold (bog paper) and the camera and shoes got wet we escaped with only a thick ear from our brush with the grim reaper.

The hike continued past wonders, perfect places that one forgets still exist with blue skies, gentle breezes and all was perfect in the world, and all too to soon we got to the end, drove home saw some whales from the luxury of a restaurant patio, drove back to the city where I thought I was having a heart attack which turned out to be a 5 grand case of indigestion but scary nonetheless and now I dream of walking up the coast of Africa.

The Otter taught me many things, a backpack sits on your waist, not hangs from your back, constructing a pillow is an art that must be learnt, everything tastes better and life is sweeter in the wilderness.