Otter Trail - "The Mother of all Hikes"

Nature's Valley BeachDay 1 - After much rock scrambling and a lunch break at the waterfall, we arrived at camp. All safe and sound, although after a dip in the sea we were sitting aorund the camp fire and noticed a big hairy baboon dashing into our hut. A few seconds later, he emerged with Nadine's braai meat in his mouth as he headed for the hills. Clearly he pounces upon all unsuspecting Day 1 hikers. Needless to say, we learnt very fast about locking the hut!

That first day proved to be a warm up as days 2 and 3 were up and down, and up and down.. with a few beach lunch stops in between. The crossing of the Lottering river on day 3 presented some moments of concern and hilarity as a large wave came in as Nadine, Michelle and Andre were crossing. Nades and Michelle got swept a little up stream and Nades managed to lose her one shoe and sock. Luckily we managed to recover the shoe 20 minutes later!

The Bloukrans river mouth crossing on day 4 could only be done at low tide (8.55am) and we had 10km to hike to get there. So after an early morning start at 2am, we hiked in the dark using the moon and our headlamps to guide us. A few false starts as path markers were covered by high tide nearly led us astray, but we eventually arrived two hours early at the river mouth. To hide from the cold and the wind, we kipped in our sleeping bags on the path. I now know that I can definately sleep anywhere. I'm just glad we didn't sleep through low tide and managed to cross (unlike those on the two days before us who had to be rescued).

Heading down to the river mounth to assess if we could cross..

After a successful river crossing (and a quick change of clothes to get warm)

We then found out that we had to wade though rather smelly sea foam and scale a rather technical stretch of rocks.
Needless to say, we were all rather tired at the end of the 13.8km of day 4, especially with the cold and early start! Some well earned rest was in order.
A final look at our huts from the fourth nights' stop, before the final 6.8km home stretch.

Arriving back at Nature's Valley Beach after five days of hard hiking.