GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - The recent Garden Route Hiking Festival saw nearly 8 500 people enjoying SANParks trails over Easter.
Communications manager for SANParks, Nandi Mgwadlamba, said: "We had a total of 8 445 visitors to the Garden Route National Park from the April 14 to 18 this year."
Some 82,57% of walkers from South Africa took to the most popular routes, being in Wilderness, Ebb and Flow and Goudveld, Island Lake, confirmed Mgwadlamba.
Final figures are still not in, but Mgwadlamba said the Circles In the Forest walk and Brown-Hooded Kingfisher trails in Wilderness attracted many walkers.
In Knysna, it was Perdekop in Harkerville and the Elephant Walk in Diepwalle that were most hiked during the Easter weekend.
"Adventure is in our nature" is the Garden Route National Park’s (GRNP) slogan. Hiking is not only healthy but also a great, fun way to explore nature on foot. SANParks has dedicated teams to maintain the quality of trails in the GRNP to allow visitors to walk," said Mgwadlamba.
What many people do not know is that walks are graded (the same concept as Blue Flag beaches) and SANParks has 15 Green Flag status trails comprising 12 in Tsitsikamma and three in Knysna.
SANParks ranger Victor Cunningham, who is based in the Tsitsikamma section of the GRNP, was elected two years ago as regional chairperson of Hosa, a newly established body that includes most landowners with hikes in the area, SANParks, Cape Pine, Cape Nature and others.
Cunningham said Hosa duties include "assisting in the development of existing trails to reach globally acceptable Green Flag standards and objectives".
The GRNP Knysna has dedicated Hilton Wildeman and Shandro Jordaan to work on trail maintenance, and Victor Cunningham and Neill Swartz to assist with the trails in Tsitsikamma. This team will also assess the trails in the Wilderness section.
"A fourth trail was identified for Green flag accreditation in Knysna last year, but it must still undergo quality control by the evaluation committee of Hosa," said Cunningham.
Perdekop (9.5km), the Elephant Walk (black, 9km), (white, 8km) and (red, 7km) and the Harkerville Coastal Hike which is a 24km hike over two days.
• The Waterfall hike starting at the Oceanettes, Storms River Rest Camp, which is 3km long and follows a path in a westerly direction towards the waterfall and is part of the famous Otter Trail.
• The Loerie, a 1km trail, starts on the left of the road about 300m before the Cattle Baron restaurant. The trail leads up to the Aghulhas lookout point on the plateau.
• Blue Duiker: the trail starts on the same spot as the Loerie trail but splits off into the deeper forest. It follows a circular route across the road and ends at the Occeanettes.
• Ratel trail divided into three routes with a 1km green route as you follow a boardwalk through indigenous forest to the Big Tree. The yellow route is 2.6km, and the red route is 4.2km.
• The Goesa Nature Walk starts and ends at the Storms River Forestry office in Storms River. It is a 2km circular walk through indigenous forests.
• Rugbos Trail traverses through the forest and has three escape routes which are colour coded. The yellow code is 1.4km, the green code is 1.3km and the blue code is 3.1km. The green and blue coded routes start from the Tsitsikamma Khoisan Village and the yellow starts and ends at the Rugbos picnic site on the Bloukrans pass.
• Stinkhoutkloof Nature Walk starts at the Bloukrans Forest station and is 8km long, traversing the natural forest and the plantation.
• Grootriver trail starts at the entrance of the De Vassselot Camp to the Grootriver Bridge and is 6km.
• Salt River Walk starts opposite to the De Vassselot Camp site and follows the Kalanderkloof trail onto the plateau. It crosses the road and wind down to the Salt River via a jeep track. You can follow the coastal path back to Nature’s Valley Beach and it is 15.1km.
• Varinghoek Trail is about 13km long and starts in Nature's Valley.
• Kalanderkloof is a 7km nature walk up to the plateau, which starts in Nature's Valley (opposite the De Vasselot camp).
Three multi-day hiking trails were accredited as part of the Otter Trail (a five-day hike in Tsitsikamma), the Dolphin trail (two-day luxury hiking trail in Tsitsikamma) and the two-day Harkerville Coastal Trail (Knysna), which is 24 km and starts and ends at Harkerville Forest Station.
* Info/more details: 044-302-5600
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