On the trail again....

Of what you wonder... an escaped criminal, a missing particle? Common Sense?
None of those - it is simply my wrangling of the Willie Nelson 'On the road again' title; and the theme of a recent hiking expedition in the Tsitsikamma area.

"And I can't wait to get on the road again.
On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been.
Seein' things that I may never see again"

I've always been interested in experiencing a proper multi-day hike, and also slightly terrified of the distance and the whole tortoise approach to being outside. I had visions of cheerfully strapping on my backpack and then keeling over slowly in cinematographic slowness.
Then I heard a word which gave me hope, parting the heavens to let a beam of light shine through and highlight the forested hills of Knysna .... 'slackpacking'!

Let me explain while we wait for the jeers of serious hikers to die down. With slackpacking you pay for porterage of baggage / food that you don't want to slog along every day. In our case, this meant that your sleeping bags, extra clothes and daily food (stored in a fridge until use) was delivered to your destination hut every afternoon. Which leaves you to carry only the essentials - warm and rain-gear, food for a day and as much curiosity as you can manage.

Our intrepid little group set off all bright-eyed, equipped with enough cameras to make a tour group envious, stocked with what we thought was a day's rations but could probably feed a small country for a week. Cresting the first rise we whipped out our official hike map to take a look at what glorious peak we'd conquered .... it was a hill. It was barely away from the hut. And that was our first introduction to quantum-distances.

Yep, the mapmakers were either very nasty or very clever; distances, landmarks and path-contours did not seem to match up with our experiences. Hills seemed higher, gentle-descents more like sheer cliff-faces and river's sneakily playing peek-a-boo with thirsty wanderers. And then we discovered creepy-kilometers; they are sneaky those creatures, and masters of deception. The first three of every day seemed to zoot past, leaving you with the impression of a shady glen, a gurgling stream or a blossoming hillside. The next few blurred into rolling walks broken only by your stomach announcing something akin to lunchtime. And then the last 6 or so....just....dragged....on....
The signposts were no help either, either with distances helpfully blanked out or offering misleading indications - never have I encountered a mere 1.5 km that lasted so bloody long! Speculation began as to whether the signs were actually counting up at one stage. Trying to match map with signpost just led to frown-induced headaches, and our group soon adapted a very zen-like approach: When we get to the hut, we stop.

And perhaps that was the whole purpose of the trail after all. You've done all the preparation you can, now just relax and enjoy the experience. And that we did. We wandered from forest to glade, up hills and down ravines, baking in the sun and soaking tired feet in icy streams, marveling at the sheer scale and beauty of this corner of Africa.


"Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way
And our way
is on the road again.
Just can't wait to get on the road again."