HIKE: CEDERBERG WILDERNESS
DATE: 27 APRIL – 1 MAY 2009
TYPE: WILDERNESS WITH TENTS
AREA: WESTERN CAPE
This was such an enjoyable hike with so much happening that it is going to be fairly difficult doing this report, knowing what to put in and what to leave out.
I myself had never done a wilderness hike, so had very little idea of what to expect. This hike was awesome, considerably difficult, but we had all luckily been doing a bit extra to up our fitness level, and this definitely helped.
We spent 2 days travelling there and back, and as those who know Florida hikers, we had just as much fun with this as we did with the actual hike. First night stayed in Keimoes, made it to Algeria camp a bit late due to an unplanned extended lunch stop in Calvinia. Got going the next morning early enough, realising that the ascent up the mountain was going to be quite something. It truly was, none of the photos do it justice, and it just seemed to go up and up for ever. Reached Middelburg hut at about lunch time, but had decided to push onto Sleepad hut for the first night, and this included lots more climbing. The huts are just a shelter and nothing more, but we were only too grateful to have a roof over our heads.
Day 2 we had originally planned to stay over in a cave, but reached this at lunch time and carrying tents we decided to push on as day 3 (heading for the Wolkberg Arch) was originally going to be a very long walk. Spent a very wet night in the tents, and day 3 we headed through the arch, and the cracks onto Sanddrif chalets – our night of luxury. Major confusion here, as reception was 3km further than the rest camp, and this would have been an extra 6km walk for us and with full back packs this was indeed a problem. Luckily we got a lift in the back of a bakkie with a very friendly worker, who kindly assisted us the following morning as well in taking us a short distance to the start of the trail to the Maltese cross.
Day 4 started with freezing wet weather and this stayed with us until we finished. It was so bad that some of the hikers were even unable to get photos of the Maltese cross. We set a fast pace purely due to the weather and reached Sneeuberg hut all looking like drowned rats – freezing cold and sopping wet!! We ended up sharing the hut with hikers from Cape Town, and crawled into bed rather early mainly due to the very cold weather. Sadly as a result of the inclement weather we were not able to see the highest peak in the Cederberg, namely Sneeuberg itself.
Day 5 heading back to Algeria was a fairly long wet trek, but we made it with enough time to spare to enable us to go on a hunt for some better accommodation other than tenting it at Algeria. Unbeknown to us it was the Rooibos tea festival in Clanwilliam so this turned out to be no mean feat!!
The trip back was only marred by Peter getting a flat on the stretch of gravel that we tackled.
Chatting to other hikers that we met in the area, doing this wilderness hike in the manner that we did, doing a circular route over 5 days, they all thought we were rather mad. Well we are after all known as the drinking eating club with a hiking problem!!!
Quite a spectacular hike – one well worthy visiting again, as it is such a vast area there is much that one can see on further visits.