Columns - 23 November 2009
A hiking experience that may affect your current disposition.
Urban Edge - Cape Times
By Evelyn John Holtzhausen
This
column today was going to be about the traffic in Cape Town - snarl-ups,
frustration, road rage and the rest of it, but on Friday I met two
extraordinary people who are working hard to develop what could become one of
the most iconic hiking trails in Africa.
I have always admired people with vision and the conviction to realise their
dreams. They are extraordinary people who lift us out of the mundane, motivate
us to reach beyond ourselves and in so doing enrich our lives. To steal a
phrase, they touch, motivate and inspire. So today it’s not about traffic.
On Friday at the Mountain Club, in Cape Town Galeo Saintz and Ivan Groenhof
spoke of their conviction to create a 720km hiking route from the Northern
Cederberg to the Outeniqua Mountains above George. It’s called the Rim of
Africa — with the pay-off line, “A walk of no ordinary proportion.
They have done the full hike, now they want to share the experience with
others.
The route will be done in stages of 12 days or so with hikers carrying
everything they need on their backs supported from time-to-time with “food
drops”. Experienced guides will accompany them.
They reminded me of environmentalist David Wadilove who, six years ago, was
inspired to create an off-road trail mountain bike route that would take
cyclists 2200kms from Natal to the Western Cape along forgotten farm tracks and
back roads.
The idea came to David while he was running from Cape Town to Durban to take
part in the Comrades Marathon. He needed to get fit he said, to run the race,
so he ran to Durban as a training exercise. His vision was to create a route
that people could race, as part of the Freedom Challenge, or enjoy in stages on
their own, exploring the country and perhaps bringing “tourist dollars” to
villages and settlements and support community-based conservation and adventure
tourism projects along the way.
It seemed a crazy idea. But David never gave up. The race is now a huge
success drawing cyclists from all over the world.
According to Galeo and Ivan the Rim of Africa, is ”not just slogging backpacks
through wild mountain country. “It’s a facilitated walking experience
that touches on the dynamics at play in a landscape.”
A veteran of the 400kms Eden to Addo, Great Corridor Hike, Galeo says that
people who take part develop a heightened sense of their place in nature and
appreciation of sensitive ecological systems.
One of their goals is to see the Rim of Africa become an iconic trail such as
the 3500kms Appalachian Trail and the 4800km Continental Divide Trail in North
America, the 500m kms Camino de Santiago Trail in Spain and the longest trail
in South America, the 9 700km Sendero de Chile trail.
It is also their belief, that without meaningful experiences in nature
that result in a change of action, “ we have no hope of conserving our
watersheds, or the mountains and their medicines.”
Exploratory hikers who have taken part in the first Rim of Africa hikes, have
apparently found their lives transformed.
“When you work to conserve experience you conserve everything that informs that
experience, from flora and fauna to an entire landscape.”
And according to Galeo, people who have done the initial 12-day hike need more
than a few days to readjust to life in the city after having such a profound
experience of wilderness.
That’s why I guess the rim of Africa website carries the warning: “This hike
may have profound effects of your current disposition.”
On one of the slides at the presentation they quote America writer Edward
Abbey, “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to
the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” May
they indeed.
evelyn@hwb.co.za
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