With my colleague and his girlfriend, we today hiked the highest mountain in the vircinity of Stellenbosch: it was the perfect hike for a Sunday. Starting with crispy clear air and bright sun at Tokara Deli, we hiked for about 3 hours (mostly in the shadow of the mighty mountain) to get a wonderful panorama across the Stellenbosch and Franschhoek valley.
The hike passes first through the vineyards of Tokara and Thelema, then to divert into the wilderness of a forest of Protea, which was burnt in the vast fires of last year (at higher altitude, some Proteas have restarted to grow from the burnt trunks):
Still there was frost at this southern slope, but what was particularly beautiful were the carnivorous plants, with tiny drops of nectar trapping flies:
The heavy rains the days before had cleansed the air, offering breath-taking views. Consider, Simonsberg wtih 1399m is higher than table mountain. Take this little panorama, where one may see Tokara far below, the whole of Stellenbosch and the Cape-flats, including Cape Town with the majestic Tafelberg:
We had an hour-long feast with Boerewors, Karoo cheese, Beer and chocolate from the Neighborgoods Market. The descent, the rucksacks were all the lighter; which however didn’t seem to have an impact on the down-hill hiking and scrambling.
We were totally lucky to have escaped the on-coming clouds:
Only 30 minutes later from below, the top looked like this (we would’ve been soaking wet):
Top of Simonsberg, seen from ~200m from below.
And no, this image was not converted to black-and-white!
We passed again the most astonishing eco-system: soil clinging to the rock, bringing to live a wide variety of moss, grasses, ferns, lichens and flowers, even — as well as frogs/toads whose clicking sound we heard. Yes, toads at about 900 or 1000m height…
After hiking for 7 hours (including the 1 hour break), we were happy to report back to Tokara’s gates and to have a great wine and celebrate with Elke and Jonathan our return.