Purple Dark-eyed Ixia a member of the Iris family
Link to detailed route page and map click on route title. Please note I have also included a link to the Botmaskop peak that we hiked in 2016 [route-snippet id=”1076″ featured=”image”][route-snippet id=”702″ featured=”image”]We first climbed Bokankop on a hot day last summer when some friends (Dave and Shirley) were visiting us from the UK and had decided to look round Stellenbosch. We dropped them off and had a couple of hours spare before meeting back up for a late lunch. We thought this was a nice short(wish) walk and headed off. As it was it was harder than we thought especially the section up to the peak which was straight up on a path which was quite badly eroded. Anyway a good sense of achievement and nice to look at when we drive past on the Hellsgroot Pass. I had heard about a path along the Ridgeline to Jonkershoek and thought this would make a nice addition to our repertoire of hikes in the area. Hiking up Stellenbosch Peak last week only strengthened my desire to hike the Ridgeline.
Tipped up to Jonkershoek on Saturday to find there was a major MTB event going on. Great to see the skills shown by bikers on the new trails that have been built in the area that was devastated by a couple of years back. Good replacement for pine forests! Also nice to see that Cape Nature and MTO are investing in the Reserve and increasing its accessibility and appeal. There are multiple ways to get up to the ridge using different combinations of forestry tracks. Happy with the route we took, advantage was the footing was good and we did not need to use the MTB single track routes except for one link section, and I think that route was largely disused. Once we were above the old forest line we started to see more flowers, although the spring flowers are now nearing their end. Some yellow broom was in flower and had a beautiful scent as we brushed past it
The trail along the ridge line was reasonable to follow, cairns helped as did the fire last year, I think the path had become very overgrown. For the most part we skirted below the sub peaks on the North side of the ridge popping out occasionally to see views across to Jonkershoek and Stellenbosch Mountain. We got to the high point on the ridge where I think there used to be a telecommunications tower (fixed line telephone poles down to the valley) – now taken down with quite a bit of old debris littered around. Decided we did not have time to get to the end of the ridge as we were due for dinner with friends at 1800, so chose this as a good point for a cup of tea before turning round and heading back.
Found a lovely spot for lunch close to the weather station where we could see across to Pearl Valley in the far distance. On the way down we decided to follow the Red (Advanced) Mountain Bike trail as all the bikers had finished for the day. Was a shorter route and made for a nice hike down, except a tad dusty at the back! Not quite ready to try this route on my bike yet! Will aim to start earlier next time we come up this route so we can get all the way to the end of the ridge. Would also like to explore in the other direction and do Square Peak, although this looks quite intimidating.
