Cape Point: the Farmer's Cliffs ...

From Smitswinkelbaai lookout: click to enlarge ...

I've been avoiding the Farmers Cliffs, a walk running 5 km and three hours from the Smitswnkelbaai lookout across the hills to Bordjiesrif. I've always used the trail as a convenient lookout from which to plot assaults on The Coves 300 meters below.

Having had a damned good walk Friday at Good Hope, I decided to put the cliffs behind me Monday morning. A three-hour, one-way gig, you need the accoutrements of a dedicated hiker to do this one alone, i.e. there's nobody on t'other side to pick you up so you walk there and you walk back.

It's suited to those with jellybean shoes, a pair of pogo sticks and a set of convertible subordinated gym debentures. I've nothing against hikers, by the way. It's just that you tend to find the inappropriately dressed ‘walkers’ — rather than the ruddy, energetic-looking ‘hikers’, poking sticks into interesting places, e.g. snake and spider holes, or trying to see how far they can manage to edge along a ledge.

It’s a cultural thing. Walking, that is …


De Boer: click to enlarge ...

You walk the Farmer's Cliffs along a path very different to those crisscrossing the rest of the reserve. My old Cats are suited to rock hopping, the sea, sand, and slime. The soles have thinned (in fact, the one needs some glue) and, being flat-footed, I've worn arches since my feet collapsed while in the navy some years back.

Running in combat boots was not my idea of good, clean fun twenty ... nay, thirty and then some years ago. It did me little good then and it came back to haunt me Monday.

In one way, the walk reminded me of the military. It lacked any variation but up, down, or straight ahead. The pictures tell the tale, don't they? Also, I was hammering my right sole — subject to a quirky prosthetic bump, into gazillions of bloody stones. On a decent, rock-littered shore, you tend to use the balls of your feet, jumping this way or that.

On this path, it's thump, thump, thump ... Anyway, my foot's now bruised.


Cape Point: click to enlarge

The reward? Precious little if you ask me or, if you ask a bunch of hikers, a serene and mindless doddle through the park.

But not all is lost. If you stick to the beaten track, the Farmer's Cliffs, which traverse Judas Peak, the three hillocks comprising De Boer, and the pointed Paulsberg do offer reward. You merely need to work for it. Past visits tell me there are a couple of interesting detours ...

I knew this before heading out to watch the sun come up on my favoured piece of turf. To spice up the walk somewhat, I decided to visit the beacon atop Paulsberg — the lofty peak with a slightly cleft chin. You can, on Google Earth, make out a path leading up to the peak from the Kanonkop side. But it appears to end halfway.

I thought "To hell with it, I'll find my own way."

Which is easy enough. And which, when summited, offers abundant, rich, bounteous reward for what is a pretty boring stroll. From Paulsberg Peak, Cape Point Nature Reserve, the Cape Peninsula, and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans surround and immerse you.

Moreover, given that few seem to head up there, it's a singularly quiet and unspoilt patch of Heaven. I had things to do later in the day, so any reverie into which I might have slipped was scotched. But I did spend time sucking in the view and the supremely fresh south Atlantic air blowing in on a gale-force breeze.

Most people venturing along the Farmer's Cliffs do so in a group and leave one car at the end of the path, reducing it to a three-hour stroll. If you're hopelessly unfit, make that four.

I headed back the way I'd come. Somehow, spending quality time atop the peak made the return walk extremely pleasurable, an undulating amble along the folds and creases of places, events and spaces before time. Reaching the lookout again, I adjudged the cliff-top stroll an extremely pleasant walk.

There are shorter routes to Paulsberg. And all are safe. You can walk up from Bordjiesrif or the Buffelsfontein Visitors Centre or you can head out over the marshes, a wonderful walk of hidden surprises which, with its mud, flora and fauna, is more to my liking.

Or you can just head for the coast ...

Places Beginning with "B" ...

Click to enlarge...

From Buffels Bay, we head north across a scrubby, rocky beach littered with dried kelp, a couple of large, featureless dunes, a cross commemorating Vasco Da Gama — the fat cat and sometime sailor who gave the Cape its name, and an abundance of unremarkable undergrowth.

Why my apparent distaste for this particular place? Its delights are documented well enough below, but the main reasons for my lack of enthusiasm are the peaks towering over False Bay. From the sea, they form a vertiginous barrier to any thought of landing but, from experience, I know the coastal strip running along their base as one of the most challenging, rewarding, and dangerous walks in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve.

But we'll get there. For now, we leave Buffels Bay and the visitors centre at Busffelsfontein, head off to further braai spots at Bordjiesrif, some of the Cape's most amazing surf at Black Rocks, and investigate the lime kiln under Paulsberg at Booi se Skerm. With a detour to Kanonkop to take in the view.

And because we've not many photos to look at, we might as well glance back in time to the original lighthouse at Cape Point — in 1860. Looks kinda different, eh?

Dunes, rocks and sandy beaches in a picturesque setting combine to make Buffels Bay a popular recreational area. ... Reserve management policy demands that recreation which is not strictly compatible with conservation, but allows for an acceptable diversity of utilisation by visitors, should be focused on a small number of appropriate sites. This minimises the need for disturbance and development in the rest of the reserve. Thus we have parking areas, rolling lawns, a tidal swimming pool, braai places and ablution blocks at the bay. Although inevitably detracting from the natural qualities of the reserve, such facilities are essential to cater for a broad spectrum of demands from visitors. Carefully planned and controlled, the infrastructure need not necessarily introduce suburbia into the wilderness. Very busy over the summer holiday season, Buffels Bay is all but deserted for the rest of the year. This is a lovely spot, and it is easy to see why it is so popular with the picnickers and paddlers. Present day visitors are not the first to appreciate the area — it has a long history of human occupation and utilisation, from vegetable farming to whaling. Today's users are, hopefully, more sensitive than their predecessors. As recently as the 1960s a fishing encampment was installed amongst the dunes. The domestic refuse emanating from this informal settlement has been largely removed, but a variety of material still surfaces from time to time. Chop bones and sea shells reflect the preferred diet of these latter-day strandlopers, an abundance of beer bottles their liquid leanings.

A second relatively intensively developed area not far away is Bordjiesrif. Again, the swimming pool and picnic spots are very busy in the summer, particularly over Christmas and New Year. At other times, there is little but the gulls to disturb the tranquillity of the boulder beaches and beckoning beds of kelp.

Further along the False Bay coast, the road runs along the foot of the hills and limestone outcrops to Booi se Skerm. We are told that years ago this was a veritable woodland of coastal shrubs and trees. A few remain, including an important relict patch of kloof forest, but most were chopped down to provide fuel for the local limekiln. Recently restored, this sits with a certain robust dignity under the outcrops which supplied its raison d'etre. The small caves in the cliffs are known as Booi se Skerm, or 'Booi's Shelter'. This stretch of coast loses the sun quite early, being almost oppressively overshadowed by the mountains, but, whoever Booi was, he and previous occupants (who may date back thousands of years) f the caves chose a retreat which affords the finest views of False Bay and the mountains beyond and received the warming sun first thing in the morning.

Michael Fraser and Liz McMahon | Between Two Shores

I'd recommend this book for its content, but not for its writing. The author uses "utilise" twice in the first paragraph, inserts “hopefully”, describes the place as "lovely", and speaks of "beckoning beds of kelp".

Urk! Let's get to the picture show ...