Cape Town - The day before hiker Robert Barclay of Botswana was reported missing he was spotted at a stream by picnickers who tried to warn him to come up before it got dark, a man told the Cape Argus on Tuesday.
The man, who asked not to be named, said he was with the pinickers on Bainskloof road at about 6.30pm on Saturday when they noticed Barclay, “just standing around” at the bottom of the road next to the stream.
The man told the Cape Argus that they had tried to get his attention by shouting and waving at him.
“He wasn’t carrying anything with him… We were concerned about how he got there because it’s a dangerous descent with loose rocks and sand,” the man said.
“He just looked at us and didn’t acknowledge seeing us… he didn’t wave back, nothing.”
Thirty minutes later the Bainskloof visitors left the picnic spot.
“It was getting dark and I assumed he came up. The next day I heard he was missing,” the man said.
The 23-year-old’s body was found 250m down a gorge on Bainskloof Pass, near Wellington, at 8am on Tuesday, said Emergency services spokesperson Keri Davids.
A technical EMS rescue and Cape Nature Conservation team used a stretcher and a safety line to carry his body to the Bainskloof road.
The discovery followed a two-day search by about 79 EMS rescuers, Wilderness Search and Rescue volunteers and family and friends.
When the Cape Argus arrived at the scene a few minutes after Barclay’s body was taken away, his brothers John, 26, and Donald, 21, were making arrangements to travel to Paarl mortuary to identify the body.
Donald told the Cape Argus that he was “still in great shock”. Before leaving for Paarl an emotional Donald thanked the rescue team for their help in finding his brother.
Cape Argus