Conquering the Namakwa Eco Trail – which is basically right on his back door – has always been on Shaun Hutton’s bucket. He and a group of friends eventually managed to set a date, book and go!
Hiking is a wonderful way to immerse yourself in the outdoors. Transported by your own two feet and carrying only what you need on your back, you can discover the beauty of nature at whatever pace you’re comfortable with. And, with a bit of planning and preparation, it’s an activity that almost anyone can do.
A shy and elusive bird unlikely to be spotted by those not expressly looking for it, the White-winged Flufftail is a small ground-living bird that typically reveals its presence by its ghostly hooting call. It is, however, one the world’s most threatened and rarest waterbirds and as such BirdLife South Africa is involved in various wetland and waterbird conservation projects to play their part in protecting this and other waterbirds.
By DR KYLE LLOYD with contributions from MARLIZE MULLER
Photos by Dr Kyle Lloyd, Warwick Tarboton, Sergey Dereliev, and Philip Stapelberg
‘Drakensberg’ means ‘Dragon’s Mountains’ in Afrikaans, and the Zulu name is uKhahlamba, the ‘barrier of spears’. Both monikers help convey these peaks’ spiky, jagged contours, which form part of a large escarpment leading to a vast interior plateau. For many hikers, a multi-day hiking trail in this wild and remote area is a definite bucket list item. And why wouldn’t it be? We put our top five trails in this beautiful area together.
Did you know that South Africa has its very own endemic parrot species, the Cape Parrot? The reason that many people don’t know this, or have never seen a Cape Parrot, is likely due to the fact that their distribution is limited to small patches of isolated indigenous forest in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo provinces. Additionally, there are only an estimated 1 800 left in the wild.
Giant snakes, some exceeding twenty metres in length, often feature in movies and hoax social media posts. But, says Johan Marais from the African Snakebite Institute, none of the modern-day snakes get anywhere near that length.
Walking around a Tentco shop for a prolonged period is a recipe for disaster. They have everything and more with regards to camping equipment, and you are almost forced to spend too much money before heading home to a difficult conversation with your significant other. And now, during braai month, Tentco has extended their already comprehensive line-up with their own brand of braai equipment. Anton Willemse Jnr was ready to do the testing…
Trygve Roberts of Mountain Passes South Africa delves a little into the fascinating history of what is today known as Die Hel.
In this, our fourth instalment on the famous Gamkaskloof, Trygve Roberts from Mountain Passes South Africa completes the descent into “Die Hel”.
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