Challenges
It all started as a brotherly bonding hiking trip. David and I had gone on a road trip from Knysna to the Drakensberg in December of 2021 and vowed to do something similar once a year. I could feel that 2022 was picking up pace, threatening to run away before we could align my busy Cape Town schedule with that of Davidās. Which boasts more of a spontaneous - back of the napkin - planning approach.
David is my darling brother. Both a family member and a friend. Someone who shares many an incredible experience with me. He is a wise person. Wiser still he is the kind of person who is not restrained by his current wisdom, and is liable to intentionally go against his better judgement to challenge himself. In a world where itās incredibly easy to find a comfort zone that works and stick to that, Davidās approach has filled his life with many more lessons and experiences that most of us will ever know. I respect and admire this hugely, and any opportunity that I have to spend time with him I cherish.
And back to the hike; I did the thing and booked the date in; a Thursday public holiday, take leave on Friday and make it a four day long weekend, easy. Two weeks before I made a booking with the Algeria Cape Nature office in the Cederberg. The weekend before the booking I bought the food. Everything was going smoothly. A-Type personality in check I begin to pack my hiking bag on Monday night, two days before I would be leaving. And then! Finally! The first challenge of the trip!
A quick aside here. On our road trip last year, David and knew that each challenge that presented itself to us was simply a problem to be solved that would ensue afterwards. The word challenge here can be replaced with disaster, fuckup or catastrophe to name but a few. Itās all a matter of framing. David broke the key off in the back of the canopy while driving to Hogsback last year, through solving this challenge we were rewarded by an outrageous party of a night.
Back to the challenge at hand. When I whipped my hiking backpack out of the cupboard, a fine trail of orange powder leaked out the bottom near the hip strap. Closer inspection yields a half empty pack of cup-a-soup, several large holes chewed by a rat and the undeniable feeling that the first challenge of the trip had arrived!
I had bought the backpack from an amazing local company called North Ridge, and theyāve always had amazing customer support. Paul, the owner, replied promptly at 6am the next morning and I dropped off the bag later that morning. We had a fat chat about many things; talking, people, backpacks, old stories and how often rats eat through bags. That afternoon my bag was fully repaired and basically brand new. I cannot suggest this company enough, I have the Route 75 and donāt think that I will have another backpack in my life.
Challenge completed! I head home to finish my work day. At 4pm my phone rings, itās Cape Nature: āMr. Thesen, the excessive rain over the last few days have caused flooding and the reserve is closed until next Tuesday.ā Another challenge! The solution for this one dragged out until the following morning where I had to dig around and find out which reserves would be open and have space for us. Groot Winterhoek was available, I had been there once before and loved it, and I booked a three night hike with access to a hut when it was raining.
I headed off to meet my parents and brother for the night, we would leave for the hike the next day. With two challenges completed and no rewards reaped I suspected that were definitely in for a good time!
Day 1
Fast forward to midday - we have just arrived at the reserve. Itās cold, there is snow on three peaks and only one other car is in the parking. We excitedly ready our bags, sign in to reception and grab the key to Klipspringer hut. No more challenges loom and we hit the trail.
We had a rough plan at this point of the hike, but we had left the first day quite open to ensure that we wouldnāt have to rush. This is where David really comes into his ownā¦ with no rush and no place to be, he has a remarkable ability to make any situation so utterly comedic and fun. David often embodies characters over the span of several weeks or months, much like an actor would do to get āin characterā. At this point in time he had been reading contemporary cowboy novels and that was the theme to play with. Wild West references ran amok, hand pistols were draw and āeasy partnerā was a common phrase drifting through the beautiful wilderness.
I personally am someone really taken by big views: mountains, skylines, boulders, rivers and just about anything that has beauty from a distance over a few hundred meters. Conversly, my partner Jordan is someone who is all about the finer details of nature. And through spending time in nature with her, I too have begun to take pleasure in fynbos, insects, small rocks and animal spoor. So I find my gaze darting up and down quite often, trying to take it all in.
We arrive at a low water bridge about half an hour before sunset. We are roughly 4km away from De Tronk and some Oak Trees that offer a good camp site. We took one look at the river we needed to cross and promptly decided that we were indeed in the perfect place to camp, and that nothing in this world was going to make us walk through a freezing river. We had walked about 9km and we decided to set up camp
It was a cold clear night and we made a delicious dinner of Ethiopian Dahl. We would be arriving at Die Tronk the next day, an old jail nestled deep in the mountains. A little skit developed between me and David where we imagined a situation where a jailor, named Jim, and a prisoner had been stuck out here in the wilderness for so long that Jim starts to think that heās the prisoner.
āLet me out of this Tronk!ā
āNo Jim, Iāve been telling you this for years; you are the jailor and you have the keys - let us both out of here!ā
Some more cowboy stories were told and we began to wonder how the snowy peak to our East was named Groot Winterhoek, which directly translates to āBig winter cornerā. It was the week before the Winter Solstice and by 7pm itās completely dark, weāre sleeping by eight.
Day 2
The morning was cold and beautiful:
As you can see from the video above - David was packed and ready to go while I was still fiddling around with my various things. While I packed my bag we continued the conversation about the naming of the mountain. We came up with the following possible hypotheses:
- Afrikaans was in its early days and they didnāt have many words to work with. So āBig winter cornerā was actually pretty creative and poetic for its time.
- The people who named the mountain had just climbed up the huge mountain range from the relatively flat farmlands to the West (near the Piketberg area) and were so fed up and exhausted that with one look at the big snowy mountain, they called the whole trek off and named the mountain āBig winter cornerā.
- The people who named this mountain initially named it something utterly romantic and eloquent. Now remember that there are no cellphones back in this day, so after the cold weeks or months that it took them to travel back to Cape Town and do whatever it took to name a mountain; their romanticism yet faded. We imagined them looking at their note containing the original name, crumpling it up with their frostbitten and worn fingers and promptly declaring that it was called Groot Winterhoek.
Ā
David pulls draws his cowboy (finger) guns and I assure him that Iām going to be ready in a minute. Luckily shoes donāt need to be put on as we have to cross the low water bridge; water up to the mid-shin and 20m across is a great way to begin the dayās hike. The backpacks have really settled in at this point. The feet move by themselves. The second day of any hike is when things really fall into place.
And then, we see footsteps. Noā¦ a single footstep. And suddenly it dawned on us who it belongs to: One Shoe Jim - the deranged jailor limping back to De Tronk after a night of galavanting. How he had survived the hundred or so years since the jail was last used didnāt concern us. We had discovered a mystery and we would make it the mission of the weekend to investigate it further.
With tales One Shoe Jim in the air, we picked up the pace and quickly reached De Tronk. There was no sign of Jim at De Tronk, so we figured that he had probably limped off into the mountain when he heard us coming. David gave the bed in there a spin and came to the conclusion that as far as jails go; this would probably be one of the nicer ones. Well, he paused, provided they let me out to appreciate the views as there were no windows in here.
āJim! Let me out of here itās dark and cold and I canāt see the big winter cornerā
There was a report published by CapeNature that has probably the best historical account of the area. Yet the information concerning De Tronk is vague. I guess if anything this gives the story of One Shoe Jim even more validity?
We explored the area of De Tronk a bit further and discovered another building of similar age. For reasons concerning placement, floor plan, bearing, the flightpaths of migrating birds and an honest guess we concluded that this second building used to house livestock. David took a peek inside and discovered a spoon.
āA spoon David?ā I asked. A little confounded that such an object could ignite a passion in him that not even Jim had. As A-Type Big Brother Leo, I had insisted on organising the whole trip, shopping and bringing gear. I had ensured that we had enough cutlery for the both of us (I even had an extra for Jim). Yet I think that the acquisition of a wild spoon definitely set David up with a sense of autonomy that no brother would ever be able to prepare.
We set off again. This time heading for a small hut where we would be spending the night. Andā¦ we arrived. Oh, itās only a few hundred meters from De Tronk. We contemplated the fact that we would be sleeping in close proximity to a one shoeād deranged jailor. And that David had potentially stole his spoon.
āYeeeah, letās not think about that. How beautiful is this hut? Itās definitely got more cottage than hut energyā I change the topic, but we both know that this isnāt the last of One Shoe Jim.
We drop our bags, make a cup of coffee and begin to repack a bag with just a few necessities as we were about to head off to Die Hel. āDie Hel?ā David points out the fact that one of the largest rock pools in the Western Cape also seemed to have fallen victim to the same pessimistic bunch who named Groot Winterhoek. I assured him that it was not very hellish and that he should be prepared to swim.
We had spoken pretty incessantly for about a day. Probably a product of not seeing each other much for half a year. Yet during the walk from De Tronk to Die Hel we fell silent and did our own thing. My own thing consisted of some thinking, some non-thinking and lots of looking. The hike starts off at the river but quickly moves East where it follows a beautifully gentle descent in the trough of the large valley. Easy footstep after footstep (with both shoes on) surrounded by spectacular scenery lull you into a false sense of comfort. And then the ground suddenly falls away; youāve arrived at Die Hel.
Thereās something about a waterfall that just does it for me. In a similar way to staring into a fire, watching a waterfall provides a wordless cathartic experience that leaves me feeling pure. And for this reason alone I can definitively say that the people who named this place āDie Helā could only have arrived by river. Because the only hellish part about this beautiful place would be falling into it in carried by a torrent of angry cold water. Maybe Jimās shoe succumbed to the same fate?
We setup our things on a flat rock on the opposite side to the waterfall. David dived into the icy water and basked on a rock. Tuna mayo and avo on Salticrax were on the menu for lunch. What had been quite a cold, wintery experience up until now suddenly changed. Light and warmth streamed in, the wind from the waterfall was fresh but invigorating and the moment was clear. I brewed another coffee in the sun.
All good things come to an end. And due to the fact that it was the middle of winter, the sunās low angle meant that by around 2pm the high walls were casting shadows on us.
āShit I havenāt swum yetā I said. And swam anyway. Just an in and out. Was it just so that I could have said that I have done it? Was it A-Type big brother energy? I believe neither, cold water snaps you into the moment so suddenly that itās like someone changed the channel while you were watching TV. If you can roll with it and just watch the next show then it can really keep life exciting.
Historically speaking Iām not much of a ātake photos on a hike kind of personā. Was that the product of me not having a camera and my phone being a fake iPhone 6 that I bought in Indonesia only to discover that it weighed half as much as it should? Actually yes. Thatās definitely the reason. So when the pink featherweight iPhone stopped allowing me to log into my banking app I bit the bullet and bought a new phone that had some fancy cameras. I didnāt want to be the person that whipped out their phone every time something vaguely interesting happened, but I also didnāt want to come back from yet another hike without even a photo of the inside of my pocket. So I straddled the balance between these two as best I could.
As we climbed out of Die Hel and entered the sunlight again we dropped bags and began shedding layers. David pointed out a faint path that skirted a ledge and seemed to lead to a cave. Being very Zen (read: distracted and deluded about it) I left everything (phone included) and followed David. We discovered a beautiful long cave with an incredible view of Die Hel and the waterfall. Our Dad has scoured many a cave in search of Rock Art, and we have been a part of a few of these adventures. So when we saw this protected cave with access to water and space for ~30 people we went on the hunt for paintings. And gather paintings we did! We found some rather faded paintings of animals and a battle scene. Some contemporary humans seemed to have performed a similar ritual and some crude symbols vaguely resembling āR <3 Dā. In some way that too is our human legacy, and while it feels intuitively wrong to say, but a love note from 2018 scratched onto a cave wall could provide a source of wonder to someone in 300 years time as a Therianthrope gives my father. We shared a smile and hiked back to Klipspringer Cottage.
Rain was forecast for that night and the following day. And A-Type Leo from the previous week booking this hut to avoid the rain was turning from a great idea into a fantastic one. Having a door that could lock was also a huge bonus after the discovery of Jim. We settled in for the night, unpacked our bags and made a delicious Central African Peanut Stew for dinner. Now you might say āhow dare you eat such fancy dinners in the wildā. But honestly Mama Alles is just as good as it gets. All you bring are the packs of dehydrated meals, a gas cooker, pot and my favourite plastic white long spoon for stirring and scraping the bottom, and just like that you have (better than most) restaurant quality food in nature.
We had brought some Amarula. And it added a flair to Rooibos tea that caused us to summon up the warmth and courage to go on a little night walk. No discussion was needed; we set off towards De Tronk. It was the obvious place to go. Our breath illuminated by our head torches we poked around the old jail. A dangerously cold place at night in the middle of winter, especially if youāre missing a shoe. We wondered what Jim might be up to at this hour? Limping though the Fynbos cursing Die Hel for stealing his shoe, eternally trapped in this paradise of a prison.
None of the stories ever turned gruesome or too scary; Jim was good at heart. He had just been unlucky or maybe someone had cheated him. We hoped that he appreciated his endless life in this timeless valley. Watching the jail erode with the mountains and the small trails wiggle around like ferns growing in a time lapse. And on the walk back to our cottage we saw two eyes staring at us from the path ahead of us.
āDavid! Stopā I hissed under my breath. The sudden serious change in my demeanour obviously having the opposite affect on my brother. I grabbed him by the arm and pointed at the pair of eyes staring unblinkingly. āCan you see them?ā I ask. David couldnāt, he didnāt have his head torch on and the light wasnāt reflecting correctly for David to see. So I started whispering an account of what I saw:
āTwo eyes, yellowā
āAbout 30 meters awayā
āThey are at about knee heightā
I was actually really excited. Iāve been looking to see a Cape Leopard for many years. Maybe this was the moment.
āOh wait theyāre moving up, now theyāre at head heightā
āMoving left, moving rightā
Maybe the Leopard was climbing a tree? Maybe itās another type of wild cat. I pull David slowly forward with me, keeping footsteps light. Weāre now about 10m away from the eyes that are moving up, down, left and right in a way that doesnāt really map well to the biokinetics of any feline that I know. I had my head torch on the maximum brightness and I could just make out a vauge dark form but not much else. I decided to just run and maybe catch a glimpse of what I had concluded must be One Shoe Jim.
Like a sprinter I raced out the blocks. This absolutely freaked David out who obviously was not part of my internal dialog deciding when the starting gun would sound. Jim was too quick for me, I caught a glimpse of his behind disappearing into the bush. My traumatised brother thought that I was having a psychotic break and we went back to the cottage and have another Amarula to calm the nerves.
I described what I had seen in detail to David and he sketched what could only be the most detailed drawing of One Shoe Jim that exists. A cat body, with an elongated, almost serpentine neck with two beady eyes. And, of course, one misplaced shoe. The stars were out, and we shared mysterious tales of Jim and his newly discovered physical appearance.
Day 3
The rain started shortly after midnight. All the liquids drunk the night before caused the inevitable 3am bathroom run; a pee off the balcony. Sleepy Leo didnāt equate the sound of rain to the fact that socks were the wrong footwear to go outside in. We woke late, at about 8:45am to that iconic sound of rain on a tin roof when you have nowhere to be all day.
Ā
We had no plans for today; and both decided to go on a little solo mission. After a breakfast of oats we did the dishes and left them on the table outside the cottage to dry. David donned a poncho and wondered off. I got my things together to go on a run.
The run that I had in mind was up towards Perdevlei along the Klein Kliphuis river. There and back would be 24km according to the map, I would be leaving the cottage quite late so I figured I would just turn around such that I would be home by 5pm.
The rain stopped and I started running. From De Tronk itās a rugged jeep track down to the low water bridge - which had turned into a high water bridge, or a very low water bridge. Whichever way you decide to name it, there was a torrential river flowing over an inverted bridge. Luckily the trail labelled ā8ā on the map broke off just before this semantic predicament.
Hiking with a heavy pack makes you appreciate running like nothing else. It almost feels like your torso is weightless and pulling you forward and upwards. I remember running up this single track like some sort of track star. After about 5 minutes of highly enjoyable uphill sprinting I became understandably tired. Conveniently, I bumped into David at this moment. So we sat down and shared a snack.
Luckily he hadnāt bumped into Jim either. David taught me to smoke a rollie without inhaling into your lungs. It follows on from the way that cigars or pipes should be smoked. Iām personally on the fence for this one - it makes me sneeze and I canāt smell much for about 5 minutes after the act. But itās better than smoke in your lungs, right? I set off again running up the valley, lungs activated.
Not too long after that I came to a point where the river had burst its banks and the trail resembled that of the very low (high) water bridge. I turned around and headed back home with a warm fuzzy feeling in my body despite my cold, soggy feet.
Me and David arrived back at the cottage simultaneously and immediately decided to go for a swim in the river to wash off before the rain came in. Shortly after swimming the rain hit; I ran home. Upon arriving home I immediately realised something was off. That prickling feeling on the back of your neck the moment that the music stops in a horror movie had arrived. A similar twinge to consciousness to the one that directly preceded the first glimpse of eyes the previous night. The feeling that One Shoe Jim had been here.
My eyes darted around. Everything seemed to be in place. The door was locked and all the windows were still closed. The only things outside were cutlery and cooking equipment from the morningās oatsā¦ wait, but where is my spoon? Not the spoon David had stolen from De Tronk, but my legendary white camping spoon; long enough to get to the bottom of any pot, sharp enough to scrape off even the most burnt oats and plastic enough to be indestructible. My favourite camping spoon was gone.
David and I searched the ground. The house. The bags. The bushes. The inside of our shoes. All to no avail.
āThat no good doing One Shoe Jim stole my spoon!ā The wail echoed through the valley. Birds flew into the sky and lightning crackled overhead.
David and I stared at each other, but we both knew what had to be done. No words were even exchanged, David simply walked over to the pile of drying cutlery and picked up the spoon that he had taken from De Tronk. I opened my mouth, but he responded:
āI must do this aloneā and set off to return the spoon.
That night we distracted ourselves from our loss by playing backgammon and making what could have been the richest hot chocolate ever created. The tin of this supposedly āDecadentā hot chocolate quotes the use of āthree heaped teaspoons per cupā, and I think we probably hit the 6 tablespoon per cup threshold. Itās safe to say we struggled to sleep.
Day 4
Dawn breaks.
Ā
We started off early on Sunday morning. We were heading home today and had 14km of Jeep track with quite a lot of elevation to cover. The highlight of the day was the very low (high) water bridge crossing that greeted us after about an hour. We held off on breakfast until after the crossing because both of us were still feeling the negative affects from our decadent hot chocolate the night before. We arrived at the crossing and it David went to feel it out without his pack incase the river was flowing too quickly for it to be safe. It ended up being fairly easy provided you didnāt stand on any slippery rocks in the middle of the river.
I even decided to leave my phone taking this time lapse. Which meant that once I crossed the river with my bag I had to cross the river twice more to retrieve my phone. Only to discover that I had left a glove behind. Which after recovering the glove brought my total river crossing count of the morning to five.
While I was freezing my toes off on four unnecessary crossings, David had prepared us a lunch of droewors, cheese, mayo, avo and Salitcrax.
With fuel in our stomaches we tackled the jeep track and what turned out to be a diabolically long climb out of the valley. If even the namesake vehicle of the track could drive out of there without difficulty, I would be incredibly impressed. We had chosen to use the Jeep track to get us back to the car as we figured that our pace would be quicker than if we took the trail along the river that we had come in on, and we had 14km to cover. I had a preconceived idea that the Jeep track would lose out on beauty for the benefit of speed and ease of walking. I was wrong.
This jeep track was like a highlights reel of the whole weekend. We could see all the way from Die Hel, to De Tronk, to the Groot Kliphuis river that we walked in on, Perdevlei in the distance and the big imposing mass of Groot Winterhoek with itās snowy peak quietly melting.
David and I were euphoric. We were high on nature, or was it just the hundreds of grams of sugar that we ingested the night before? It didnāt matter either way. I forgave One Shoe Jim for stealing my spoon and not giving it back even though David had returned Jimās spoon. I mean, spoons are hard to come by out there, and I could always replace my favourite camping spoon (I have already actually).
It was during the peak of a nonsense talking session that we spotted the first two humans that we had seen since we left the carpark on Thursday. Two young people who were trekking along the Jeep track on a day hike. In the moment, we interacted with them as we had been interacting with one another over the last four days. The normality of which had degraded substantially each day. We might have mentioned Jim in a rather ominous way and told them to keep a close eye on their spoons. We had a laugh about how the two young hikers probably either thought we were crazy or were completely confused by the whole encounter.
We made good pace along the Jeep track. Walking was easy. One was able to walk at a steady pace and spend a significant amount of time looking at the view. One one of the occasions that my eyes were placed firmly on the ground while trudging up a hill I saw a fresh Cape Leopard print that was probably only a few hours old.
And before we knew it; it was over. The car was in sight. Keys were dropped off at reception. Receptionists were assured that we were absolutely fine and that the rain and cold hadnāt been awful. Jim gained a spoon. And two brothers have another incredible shared experience.
Afterword
This writeup aims to flavour memories and photos that exist from this adventure into nature. I also am getting back into writing, and in early July 2022 I will be taking a 3 month sabbatical from work and will embark on an adventure. I endeavour to write daily and post stories from time to time. Sign up below if you enjoyed this:
Ā