Finally after various unsuccessful weekends I got the opportunity to visit Groendal Nature Reserve. Groendal is part of the greater Baviaans Mega Reserve. Just 50km out of Port Elizabeth it is characterized by rugged terrain, streams and vast ravines.
The day started of with a quick fact check with the local hiking club. Shortly after we were on our way up the Upper Blindekloof Trail. After about 2km's we reached a little monument in honour of the inception of the reserve. We ignored the sign stating Upper Blindekloof to the right, as our local informant told us to do, and soon found ourselves plunging down into a ravine and indigenous tree canopy. We were now on the Lower Blindekloof trail. It is a beautiful flat trail zig-zagging across the dry riverbed. Jumping over tree roots and ducking and diving under low hanging branches. Not ideal for someone as tall as me. It was soon apparent how dire the drought is in Port Elizabeth. This route is suppose to be characterized by various swimming pools. Although there were crystal clear pools it is evident that it's been quite some time since any fresh water flowed through here. It took us about 40 minutes to reach the end of Blindekloof. A beautiful swimming pool and even a swing rope from a tree. I won't swim in this pool now, but if the river was flowing this will make for an awesome refreshing swim. After a quick confirmation on the map we realized that we were indeed on the incorrect track and that our hiker friend sent us down the wrong path. Not that this was a huge problem, just a little irritating.
We head back out the ravine and got onto the correct path at the monument. From here it was a hot and steep climb to the top of the plateau. The views from the plateau was amazing. We could see the Baviaans mountains in the distance, the ocean and hundreds of little hills into the horizon. The next sign we encountered lead us on an extreme knee jerking downhill via a very small and faint single track back down to the river. Once again we followed the dry river bed up the ravine. With no obvious path it was a slow, painful bushwhack.
We reached the second junction in the ravine and while the baboons up in the ravine sounded unhappy about something we checked the map again. We had three options. A, we go on in the ravine and exit as per the map, which at this speed would take us forever and a day and we only had so much skin on our legs that can be torn of. B, bushwhack up the nearest hill and try to pick up a path. C, retrace our steps and head back out the ravine the same way we came in. The safe choice was C. We reached the plateau once again and felt rather positive about the hard slog up the ridge. "Perfect training for Baviaans" was our mantra.
We ran to a plantation on the horizon and had something to eat in the shade. We deserved it. We were running low on water and knew we would have to push on to get back down and out of the beating sun. After 15km of mostly downhill we were safely back at the car.
We learned some valuable lessons, while nature clearly had the upper hand. The score 4-1 for Mother Nature. I got a stick in my eye, we ran out of water, Chris lost his shirt during the bushwhacking and we both ended up like we received "6 van die bestes" from the principal on our legs. We could only score one point, making it back stronger and tougher than before.
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| The start to the most technical running I've done in Port Elizabeth |
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| Anyone up for a swing? |
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| Knee jerking descent |
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