Adinda Smit (owner of Marina Cottage) was very kind and bought us some breakfast supplies as she knew we were hiking the trail. We supplemented it a bit and had a full cooked breakfast at the cottage before heading out. Very nice start to the day!
The start of the trail is a nice warm up along the flat for a couple of km. As we had started before 9.00am there was still shade on the climb up to the first coll which was very pleasant. Had some Rooibos tea and homemade carrot cake (another treat from Adinda!). It was nice walking back as we knew what to expect on the trail and could enjoy it. Made the waterfall in good time, enjoying a paddle just before a large party heading in the opposite direction to us arrived. Important to note that there is no reliable water between Greyton and the waterfall, whereas between the waterfall and Die Galg there are a couple of places to refill bottles and cool down
The flowers looked really beautiful in the sun. All to soon we reached the junction with the Circle trail which is maintained by the owners of the Onverwacht Cottages – decision time, should we drop back down to the river and chance our luck that we could join a trail up to the cottages or would we end up having to bundu-bash. As it was not yet one o’clock we decided to give it a go.
The trail down to the river is steep in places with very loose footing, glad of my stick. Down at the river we came across some wonderful pools where we paddled and ate our lunch. Could look up to Eagles Rest Guest House and see people on the veranda. They were probably thinking what a good idea (they had been in front of us on the trail). From the river the trail wound its way along the valley side and eventually, after dropping back down to the river which we crossed, we joined up with a track up the opposite side of the valley to the cottages. The trail at this point became very steep with lots of loose gravel and small rocks, could be treacherous descending. There looked to be a couple of other trails from the valley floor that would be good to explore another time.
Although at the time this detour felt longer and harder than if we had gone back to the cottages following the route to Die Galg, in fact the map shows it as being a slightly shorter route with slightly less elevation. In any event it was well worth doing as the valley was lovely to walk along and the pools were a great find.
Link to detailed route page and map click on route title [route-snippet id=”522″ featured=”image”]
Some pictures
