Dispatch 04
We started at Storms River at half past six with the sea already the colour of old tin, and by the first river crossing I had understood the mistake. March is not the wrong month for the Otter because of the rain. It is the wrong month because everyone else knows it is the right month, and the huts had been booked eleven months ago by people more organised than us.
So we walked it in the shoulder, in weather that could not decide, and had the whole coast to ourselves for four of the six days.
The tide table matters more than the weather forecast. Everything else is negotiable.
What the camera got
Coming down
The last morning is the shortest and it is the one nobody photographs, because by then the boots are wet through and the only thing anyone is thinking about is the bakery in Nature’s Valley.
I would do it again in March. I would just book it in April, the year before.
Dispatch 05 is up
Four days on the Rim of Africa, in a wind that took the tent twice.
Read the next oneEarlier dispatches
Dispatch 03 — Rim of Africa
Four days, one lost tent peg and a wind that did not stop. January.
Dispatch 02 — Cederberg, off the path
Rock art, one snake and a water source that had not run in two years. November.
Dispatch 01 — Table Mountain, before work
Platteklip at half past four, at the desk by eight. Twice a week for a month. August.
Who writes this
I work in Cape Town and walk when I can get the leave. I carry too much camera and not enough water, and I am slowly fixing the second one.
Send a postcard
Corrections, route conditions or an argument about tide tables — all welcome.