As the hadeda ibis flies, it’s not more than 15km from Plettenberg Bay, the glam holiday spot of the southern Cape coast – a place hardly off the beaten track. If it has to have a name, as in a place to aim for, then let’s call it Takama, and its proximity to ‘Plett’ alone made this discovery so very worth it. It’s profoundly contrasting, and one of my three top South African ‘finds’ of the last five years. One of the distinguishing features of the BBC ‘Africa’ series currently showing on TV around the world, is – to paraphrase – that it reveals parts of Africa never before seen. It’s some claim, and carried off as only the BBC can, with the final product bordering on the awesome. Which brings me in a roundabout way to this wild piece of South Africa. One could say that Plettenberg Bay is to this country what Cannes is to France – a lifestyle destination as much as anything else. But as so often happens, it’s across the road and up into the interior that the real destination gems are waiting to be found. And that’s pretty much where we found it. Takama is a wild piece of mountain country, of gorges and ravines cut through and separated from all familiar infrastructure by the Keurbooms river. When the river is in flood, the only road to this part of the world can’t be crossed – and the handful of residents on the other side are cut off ( and all too often reliant on the Dutch flower farmer with an airstrip for a lift ). This place is as remote as Plettenberg Bay is mainstream. It’s a large chunk of land, and involves one Dave Mostert – a quiet man of thick beard and great, brooding passion – miles of unexplored mountain, forest and fynbos, and views from heaven’s top drawer. All held together by his devoted wife and dedicated sons. But more about them another time. I came across Takama on one of South Africa’s newest hikes, the ‘Eden to Addo’. It’s ‘slackpacking’ if you consider that your tents and clothing are transported between overnight stops. But that’s as slack as it gets. The kilometres walked aren’t for tender feet, and it’s cold by night. Sleeping arrangements involve a two-man tent and a bag. And it happens only once a year. Starting in the thick indigenous forest tracts that blanket chunks of land between Plett and Knysna, and ending in the Addo Elephant National Park some 400km to the east, this hike is a private initiative aimed at creating awareness of a biodiversity corridor linking Knysna and Addo. Of re-establishing routes once walked by elephants and loads of other living things – trees included – since wiped out or removed. With elephants living in both the Knysna forest (five of them still call the forest home) and Addo – which offers amongst the finest elephant activity to be seen anywhere – this notion makes loads of sense. But with no ‘right of way’ built into the law in South Africa, it’s the sort of venture associated more with Europe and North America. Simply hiking across farmers’ land, commercially forested tracts and national park property presents a challenge to this land-owning and security-conscious nation. As it does to Joan Berning, the conservation-minded organiser-in-chief of this quite remarkable hike. 90 minutes after being collected from George airport, I arrived with fellow-hikers at a clearing a good few bumpy dirt-road kilometres from the tar of the national road. It was September, with spring not quite here and the sun sinking rapidly, as opposed to setting in the languid fashion of summer. There was a campfire surrounded by bare legs, beanies and thick socks. All wrapped in thick puffy jackets. I’d been dressed like that once, but that was long ago – and this time the inners for my socks had joined my beanie and night-lamp as left-behind-in-the-vehicle. I set off for the tent I would be sharing with a bloke from the WWF. The tents were in a row behind a mud embankment, on top of which was a plantation of exotic wattle trees, reminiscent of those long-drop toilets that were a feature of basic training in the army. It was already dark, and I couldn’t see a thing. With the chill now rating as serious, I decided I wouldn’t be changing into sleeping gear. Such detail could wait for the next day, along with the shift in mindset that would accommodate this abrupt switch in daily lifestyle: like organizing the tent before it gets dark, queuing to brush teeth and deciding on whether to use the loo before breaking camp or using the shovel (carried by the guide) en route. A typical plate-in-the-lap campfire dinner was followed by the ubiquitous self-conscious introductions ‘to the group’ and the emergence of a 78 year-old Liverpudlian Durbanite named John as the joker in the pack. We were instructed to make our lunch for the next day from the bread, peanut butter, salad and fruit spread out on the catering table. This was then packed into the tupper-ware we were supposed (note to self: read the bloody instructions next time) to have brought. It was to become the routine for the next three weeks – usually before brushing teeth from a cup in the dark somewhere. The next morning we headed into the lush, indigenous Knysna forest, passing century-old woodcutters’ cottages, leopard spoor and bushpig diggings along the way. After visiting the area for almost two decades, this was all new to me, like the fresh scent of the forest. We were on a section of the renowned Outeniqua trail, but it was a Monday, and I had a feeling we’d see no-one else on the trail. With ravines spread throughout the area the trail involved a few long downhills followed by the inevitable steep inclines. Everyone quickly fell into their own pace. Some concentrated on their ankles, while others marvelled at massive mushrooms, bird-calls bouncing off the leaves and spider-webs anticipating happy shafts of sunlight. Somewhere in there, amongst the ferns and immense hardwoods, we lay down and ate our lunch. Some of us snoozed. The last few kilometres making up the 23 for the first day were a bit tough – uphill on a hard forestry road to the Diepwalle camping site – especially if your toes weren’t used to putting in the hard yards.With the fire going strong by the time we arrived, I filled a bucket with water from the fire and set about showering myself behind a plastic camping gizmo wrapped around a tree. It reminded me that for some strange reason I don’t take well to putting my feet back down on the sand once I’ve washed them. But the cold was setting in, and the beer and supper were waiting. And worse than dirty, newly-washed feet, was the thought of feeling my way around a tent without a torch. Yes, because I hadn’t read the bloody instructions. The next day would see us leaving the forest.

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