By Jennifer Stern
I love Wilderness - the concept as well as the rather scenic Garden Route town. So I just leapt at the opportunity to spend a couple of days paddling the lakes with a group of friends.
There are a number of opinions about what it is that makes Wilderness special. Sure - the long lovely beach with the dolphins frolicking in the waves and colourful paragliders floating overhead is pretty special.
The Outeniqua Choo-tjoe huffs and puffs its way through the town offering two of the most spectacular photo opportunities - and the driver is well trained.
He looks up at the vantage points and, if he sees a photographer, he gives a generous puff of steam. Or the deep, dark, mysterious oh-so-beautiful Kaaimans River, where you can swim, abseil down waterfalls or gaze in envy at the riverside homes.
All these things are great, but what makes Wilderness special is the enormous wetland that makes up the Wilderness National Park.
We arrived early on Wednesday evening and settled into a cosy little wooden cottage right on the river. (It was work for some of us, so we did this during the week, but most people would choose a weekend, so imagine it was a Friday).
We'd brought our own kayaks up from Cape Town, but Eden Adventures supplies stable, easy to paddle canoes for the trip. Bright and early the next morning, we paddled up the Touws River, left the boats on the bank and walked up to the most beautiful waterfall, where we frolicked in lovely mountain pools.
A quick paddle back home had us tucking into a big brunch on our veranda, and then we headed off up the Serpentine.
Wilderness is justly renowned for its bird life and we saw so plenty - pied, giant and half-collared kingfishers, coots, yellow billed ducks, herons, fish eagles and a pair of cute dabchicks, or little grebes.
Occasionally we put our backs into it, but really, we just enjoyed gently paddling through the very twisty and well named Serpentine. After a rest on the banks, we paddled across Island Lake and up the Duiwe River to our camping spot for the night.
We clambered up our little jetty, retrieved our gear from the back up vehicle and all tried to grab the best tent.
There's a great swimming hole a short walk from the camp, and some good walks. We, of course, opted to do nothing and just hung around in the shade chatting until supper. But, in our defence, it was about 40°C.
Next morning we munched our way through a leisurely breakfast and then trailered the boats to Swartvlei for our last paddle. It was a hard choice - it was either that or the Goukamma River, which would have been my first choice.
But I was outvoted, as some of us had to scoot back to town, and Swartvlei is a lot closer. More birds, more fun paddling - and then we loaded the boats up and headed back to our little wooden cottage.
We said goodbye to half the group who dashed off back to Cape Town and then we split up - some taking photographs and some abseiling down a waterfall on the lovely Kaaimans River. We met up again in the evening and sauntered around the wonderful Friday night market with live music floating out above the pretty square.
We resisted the temptation to buy all manner of knick-knacks, clothing, furniture and accessories, but found ourselves helpless in the face of home baked breads, cheeses, other yummy snacks and possibly the best cheesecake in the world.
- The canoeing trail (you don't have to bring your own canoes) costs R995 including all food, guides, equipment, etc, but excluding the first night in the SANParks chalet. You can add on a walk back to Wilderness along the beach, or an extra day's paddling. Each extra day costs about R200 per person.
- Contact Eden Adventures on telephone 044-877-0179, 083-628-8547, [email protected], www.eden.co.za.
- Wilderness is about a 20-minute drive from George Airport. Eden Adventures also offers bike rental, canoe rental for your own exploring, kloofing trips, abseiling trips and escorted cycling trips.
- This article was originally published on page 12 of The Star on May 13, 2006