This morning it was difficult to leave the small National Park cabin I stayed in last night. It was perched 20 feet from the ocean, on a rocky bluff, and all night long I could hear the pounding surf outside. But there was a good reason to get going: for the next 1.5 days I’m hiking South Africa’s most famous and popular hiking trail—the Otter Trail. Just 25 miles long and punctuated with decedent cabins, it’s not exactly training camp for some of America’s renowned trekking routes like the Continental Divide Trail or even the Long Trail, but it fits nicely in a 3-week itinerary.
I was able do 20 miles today in about 9 hours, leaving 5 more miles for the morning. If I had been willing to hike by headlamp I could have reached Nature’s Valley tonight, but I opted instead to throw my bag into one of the Andres Huts and take photos of the evening light and surf. The literature you will read about the Otter Trail describes it as a 5-day/4-night hike, a pace that I think would be torturously slow. [Note: If you decide to hike it in less than the standard time, beware that the 12-person huts might be filled to capacity, in which case you’ll have no priority since you’re not following the schedule. The visitor’s center at the east trailhead can let you know if you should expect to camp out.] Of course, since every other backpacker I saw was carrying loads in excess of 40 or 50 pounds, 5 days might be spot-on. The macho-driven mentality about pack weight holds strong here—one of my favorite scenes from the trip was when a foursome set up a rope to ford a 2-foot deep river that was barely moving. The first guy who crossed fit the persona perfectly: “Give me the rope, Hal. Ladies, wait here.”
Based on what I saw today, I’ll rate the Otter Trail a 7.5 or 8 out of 10, with 10 being the best. It features beautiful indigenous forests, which are hard to come by along the Garden Route—most hillsides have been replanted with non-native trees for their timber value. There are frequent overlooks of the rugged coastline, which is composed of sedimentary sandstone that has been titled to near-vertical angles. The huts are superb: clean, sizable, nicely constructed, rodent-free, and outfitted with comfy 6”-thick mattresses. Lastly, the Trail has some exciting river fords, with the best being the Bloukrans—if you catch it around low tide, it’ll require at least a 15-foot swim to the opposite bank; if it were high tide and there were rough seas, it would undoubtedly be frightening.
Why didn’t the Otter Trail get a 10? First, I would have liked some more variation in the experience—an occasional walk along a sandy beach or alongside a river would have mixed things up. I also would have appreciated better lighting—the sun does not get high enough at this time of year to fully illuminate the shoreline—the rays are blocked by the steep bluffs. Lastly, I’m a mountain man first, a hiker second; so the trail’s lack of big inspiring peaks was a downer. None of these criticisms are within control of the trail maintainers, so I suppose it’s very fair to say that they’ve maxed out the value of what they had to work with.
Hi Andrew
Just read your article. How did you get onto the trail for a day and a bit? Did you need any special permission? Any advice on how to get on at short notice?
Thanks in advance
I don’t remember the details, but I was traveling with an employee from the SA tourism office, so my guess is that if my hike did not comply with standard policies that I probably had some special permission.
Tsitsikamma Hiking Trail
Feedback
The trail is incredibly beautiful, and the huts were attractive and clean. However, the organisation of the slackpacking service was very poor.
The average cost per person per day was R233.00.
On Monday morning, the 10th, when we arrived, there was no one to receive us. I tried calling the person with whom I had made the booking, but she did not answer. When I asked the person at the gate to call her, we were told that she was not coming to the office that day. I also phoned another number provided at the gate, but that person also did not answer.
We were unable to submit our indemnity waiver forms, nor the porterage forms. Each day’s food was labelled in different colours. We left our labelled food on a bench because we needed to start walking. We waited until 08:45.
At the first hut, Bloukrans, the blue bags with blue porterage tags were used. Each person had three tags for each day:
• Fridge
• Freezer
• Dry food
At Keurbos, the second hut, green bags and tags were used.
At Heuningbos, the third hut, yellow bags and tags were used.
At Sleepkloof, the fourth hut, the tags were red.
On Monday at Bloukrans, the food for two people did not arrive. Thus, the rest of the group had to share their food with those who had not received any food or drinks — which meant that everyone ate and drank less than they had planned. The water at the hut was also insufficient for 25 people.
On Tuesday at Keurbos, the food for three people did not arrive – again a shortage of food.
On Wednesday at Heuningbos, all the food from Monday was only delivered then – Which means that too much food was delivered, and many of the items were perishable and delivered several days late. While there had been too little food during the previous two days, there was now too much to use, leading to unnecessary waste of both food and money as we could not finish all the meals in one evening.
On Wednesday there were not enough mattresses, because there were two groups—25 people in total and only 24 mattresses.
On Thursday we had to hike out and could not continue to Sleepkloof due to forest fires. We had already paid for the fourth hut’s accommodation at Sleepkloof. As a result, we had to arrange and pay for alternative accommodation for Thursday night.
We had also already paid for the slackpacking service to collect our baggage on Friday morning and return it to Nature’s Valley. When we asked whether they would cover the cost of the shuttle that came to fetch us, we were told that we needed to pay for it ourselves.
Although we, hikers, had already paid all our costs in advance, we were required to pay extra for an “emergency,” which is completely unacceptable. Management should make provision for such situations—especially fires, given that this is in a forest—and should not pass these costs on to the hikers. Furthermore, the costs already paid should have been refunded for the days and transport that could not be used due to circumstances entirely beyond the hikers’ control.
We believe the groups they book are too large, and they are unable to manage them effectively.
The organisation was simply too poor considering the amount of money we paid.