This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

21 June 2008

View online here

Having jumped at the chance to join a group of friends on the much-vaunted Whale Trail along the Cape South Coast, I took a cautious step back (although, by then, it was too late) when I discovered that the trip was booked for the middle of summer. After all, though I don’t pretend to any great knowledge in the field of marine biology, anyone who’s ever had to give advice to an Hermanus-obsessed British tourist knows that “whale season” – when the gentle Leviathans come to breed close to land – is in the late winter and early spring. November at a push. But any later than that and, well ... then it’s just the Trail. Or so I thought.

Hopes of sighting a whale were pushed even further to the backs of our minds when, on the first morning of the hike, we left the overnight hut (which is about 10km inland) and headed, not south to the coast, but north-east: uphill to Potberg mountain, beyond which lies the Breede River. Not much sea-life in those waters.

We soon realised, however, that this trail has far more to offer than whale-spotting. For one thing, the De Hoop nature reserve, which encompasses the route, is home to species of fynbos that are not found elsewhere in the Western Cape. For much of the first day’s walk – the longest, at 15km – we were surrounded by proteas, ericas and restios; under the summer sun, the slopes of Potberg were awash with their yellow-gold and brown-bronze flowers.

The first leg also took us to the highest point of the hike (611m). Soaring even higher, hundreds of metres above our heads, we spotted a number of Cape vultures. To the north, a panoramic view of the Breede River Valley took in not only the oxbow loops of the river course itself but also Malgas, Swellendam and the distant Langeberg mountains. To the south, we knew, lay the coast. But we had a long way to walk before we got there.

The Whale Trail is a hike of the stop-and-smell-the-fynbos variety, rather than the fitness-freaks-only or boast-to-your-friends variety. The distances are manageable and there are numerous spots to rest (the good people at CapeNature, who are charged with administering the trail, recommend a few, and there are many others that present themselves along the way). Nevertheless, towards the end of day one, even after a refreshing swim in the cola-coloured waters of the Melkhout River, we were relieved to discover that the path turned downhill for a few kilometres leading to our destination: Cupidoskraal.

The “huts” along the trail are more than the basic accommodation implied by that word. There’s no electricity, but there are solar- and battery-powered lights and plenty of gas for cooking and hot water. The beds are comfortable (if a little squeaky), the kitchen facilities are more than adequate and the bathrooms are clean. Best of all, each time we arrived at our overnight stop, we found our luggage waiting for us. The reasonably-priced porterage service is another example of how the Whale Trail is “roughing it” without being too rough: before leaving each morning, we simply packed our clothes, food and other provisions into black plastic cartons that were taken to the next stop for us.

We had a dip in the dam at Cupidoskraal before heading off on the 14,7km route to Noetsie (each layover on the Whale Trail has an intriguing name). The path climbs back up the Potberg and follows the mountain ridge for some time; from here we could see the ocean, and before long we began our descent to the shore. There was a stark change in vegetation as the mountain fybos gave way to coastal scrub; we also crossed a fairly bleak patch in which charred bushes and trees were scattered grimly among limestone outcrops. But this was quickly forgotten when we caught site of the cove at Noetsie which, viewed from above, is just as cute as the name suggests.

Lower down we discovered that the sea in the bay was actually quite brutal, thundering onto the pebbled beach. We admired it from the safety of some rockpools, before retreating to the bungalows for an afternoon nap, a bit of reading, some frisbee, a glass of wine – this is the idyllic pattern of afternoons on the Whale Trail, especially in the summer, when it stays light into the evening and the sunsets seem to last for hours. (It’s not always like this, of course. When we were waxing lyrical to one ex-Whale Trailer about the joys of braaiing along the sea-shore, she reminded us that doing the hike in winter is a different story: it’s cooler on the trail, but rain is likely, and it gets dark early.)

From Noetsie, we walked almost due west along the coast for three days, stopping overnight at Hamerkop and Vaalkrans before arriving at Koppie Alleen. If that sounds strenuous, it wasn’t really; the longest stint was a 10km beach walk on day four. The path from Noetsie to Hamerkop, following the rugged undergrowth along the tops of vertiginous cliffs, probably provides the most dramatic scenery of the entire trail: there are sheer drops down to the sea, which has, in turn, carved out striking features and enormous caves into the rock over the millennia.

The feeling that we were walking through a primeval landscape was enhanced by our occasional encounters with grey-blue lizards, who gazed out from the great heights towards the ocean as if they had been there since the stone age. We were also visited by those other distant relatives of the dinosaurs, birds: from diffident oystercatchers to squawking cormorants.

A brief detour to the tidal pools at Stilgat gave us an opportunity to interact with ancient life forms of a different sort. Make sure you have a snorkel and goggles in your day-pack for the second half of the Whale Trail, because at Stilgat – and elsewhere, such as at Hippo Pools on day five – there is an abundance of marine life just below the surface of the crystal clear water. Candy-striped fish, sea urchins, crabs, starfish and other creatures that you might expect to see when diving in tropical island reefs are all there to be seen. And, perhaps because there’s no fishing in this protected area and because CapeNature keeps the human traffic to a bare minimum, the fish don’t shy away from you either.

People walk the Whale Trail for the natural splendour, but there are a few points of historical interest too. Given the Cape South Coast’s reputation as a graveyard for ships, it’s not surprising that most of these are related to tales of unfortunate seafarers. There is also a simple but moving memorial to one Daantjie de Wet who, at the age of twenty, was swept out to sea by a violent wave off a rocky outcrop near Hamerkop in 1937.

In years to come, however, our associations with Hamerkop will not be sombre but celebratory – for it was here that, against all expectations, we saw the prized Eubalaena australis: a Southern Right whale. And not just one, but three, including a mother and baby, gambolling just a few hundred metres offshore. They stayed there for some time, allowing us to admire them from the comfort of our balcony until the last light faded and our binoculars went dark.

It seems that, both in season and out, the Whale Trail lives up to its name. But even if you should walk this spectacular route for five days and not see a single whale, you still won’t be disappointed.