I have a predilection for the epic solo journey on foot. Tracking a river, summitting a mountain, crossing unwelcoming terrain — and being rewarded, at the end of it all, with some kind of sublime moment earned through effort and even pain. We lonely traipsers imagine ourselves like the figure in Caspar David Friedrich’s Romantic painting, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog: staring out from a rocky precipice across a vast landscape, in awe of nature, but also feeling like masters of all we survey.
Solitary wanderers can, admittedly, be selfish narcissists, though often we are just troubled souls needing a bit of me time. We are enabled by plenty of literary precursors. Henry David Thoreau stomped off into the woods “to live deliberately” (implicit in this: he wanted to be alone). Laurie Lee “walked out one midsummer morning” and tramped across Spain. Cheryl Strayed hiked 1,000 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail, then wrote a book about it and was played by Reese Witherspoon in the 2014 film Wild.
There is also something appealing in the archetype of the travelling duo. The gently comic version is Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, set on that other grand American path, the Appalachian Trail. When rambling as a pair goes wrong, it can feel more like a Cormac McCarthy novel. Still, there is something to be said for companionship. But two is my upper limit.
Or so I thought.
My wife and I recently had the opportunity to hike the Green Mountain Trail in the Elgin Valley, which presented me with a conundrum. Exploring the pristine slopes of the Groenlandberg in the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve? A slackpacking experience with a comfortable bed each night? Fine dining and wine tasting? Sign me up for all of it.
Yet this would mean — dread thought — joining a group of strangers. I would no longer be able to sing, channelling Green Day, a defiant “I walk alone, I walk alone!” There would be no angsty freedom, no moments of unaccompanied revelation. I figured it was worth the risk. For her part, my wife was delighted that she would not be trapped in footslogging codependence with a backpacking buddy who cites John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.
We turned off the N2 at Houw Hoek and, within a couple of minutes, pulled up outside the ivy-covered walls of Wildekrans Country House. This is home base for all Green Mountain voyagers, whether you undertake the full four days and 55km of the trail or the shorter two- or three-night version. Owner Alison Green, who was born and raised in the Elgin region, has looked after Wildekrans with her architect husband Barry Gould for more than 25 years. The oldest buildings date to 1811, and the property has survived fire and flood, now offering luxury accommodation as part of its heritage.
Paradise
Soon after we arrived, Alison poured us a cup of tea. It was time to meet our fellow hikers. Then the strangest thing happened: I made new friends.
There were Susan and Mike, visitors from the US who spent much of that afternoon and evening apologising about their country’s president until we were finally able to reassure them that we didn’t hold them personally liable. And there were Olga and Marek, who previously divided their time between SA and the Czech Republic but had recently decided that Cape Town held greater appeal than Prague.
Before we’d set foot on the trail, our bond was sealed over an entertaining wine tasting with Mohseen Moosa of Paardenkloof Estate, followed by a delicious meal. Fine dining would be a theme over the next few days — whether by candlelight in the old barn, under the trees on the Wildekrans lawn, or hauled in a backpack and enjoyed on a mountain ledge with a steaming flask of coffee.
We quickly settled into the comfortable routines and daily rhythms of slackpacking life. An early start, stopping for breakfast after a couple of hours, making a weary but happy return around lunchtime with a dozen kilometres and a few hundred metres of elevation in our legs. An afternoon spent reading, napping, getting a massage or strolling the grounds to admire an impressive collection of SA art (featuring sculptures and paintings by William Kentridge, George Pemba, Wilma Cruise, Robert Hodgins and Guy du Toit). An evening of hearty farm food and local wine, revisiting the sights and sounds of the day, looking forward to more of the same the next morning.
I acknowledge that such circumstances lend themselves to forging friendships. Alison, characteristically modest, tells me that “people always just seem to get along” when they come to know each other at her house and on the trail. And perhaps there is an element of self-selection; the fools and curmudgeons of this world obviously choose other sorts of getaways.
Having much-loved group leaders also helps. Never mind Thoreau or Bryson — if it’s literary woodland heroics you’re after, recall the famous opening of 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy: “In the middle of life’s journey,” Dante writes, “I was in a dark wood, having lost the straight path.”
This metaphorical wood became a gateway to hell, though eventually Dante finds his way to heaven. Luckily for him he has a guide to help him through the worst parts of his adventure: the ancient Roman poet Virgil.
Our group of six was never quite in the woods, and never had to brave it through inferno or purgatory like Dante. We never really left paradise, to be fair. But our trek across the Green Mountain would have been much the poorer without the expertise of our guides, Andreas Groenewald and Patrick Mapanye. In season, they are more often on the trail than off it, but their commitment is undiminished.
To see an ecosystem through the eyes of a passionate and knowledgeable guide is nothing less than thrilling for city slickers like me whose love for nature does not necessarily mean we know how to look. Our guides taught us that wasps are used to control the spread of invasive tree species like black wattle. They told us about birds, and flowers, and the deep time of geology.
A typical conversation would range from entomology to etymology, enlivening the human history of the area. Want to know why the Dutch warned travellers to hold on around “Houw Hoek” or what made all the butter at “Botter Rivier”? You’ll learn on the trail.
And we learnt from each other, too, in our small band of slackpackers. We talked about politics, sure, and about hobbies and business and family. We gossiped, we joked. But we also dwelled on big questions. What are the limits of national identity? How do we make amends for past injustice? What does artificial intelligence mean for the future of being human?
On the last day, we left the green wilderness and descended into Bot River, taking our seats around the lunch table at Beaumont Family Wines and toasting our success with a glass of chardonnay. We hadn’t answered all the big questions, but that didn’t matter. I had discovered that there are better ways to walk than going it alone.
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