I'm about as fit as a rice pudding. My idea of exercise is chain-smoking and driving cars without power steering.

But, when over the comparative safety of a braai table, my mate Duane suggested doing the Otter Trail a year from then, a rush of Camel Man machismo flooded over me. I drained my beer and said “Why not, indeed?”

Time passed, and before I knew it I was packing freeze-dried food, checking my gas burner, and generally busying myself with tasks to avoid the fact that I still had the muscle tone of a blancmange.

The Fantastic Four

Our team was me, Duane, his girlfriend Saffron, and Mike. Duane’s a stalwart Cape Union Mart Poster Boy type who’s done the hike before. Saffron’s a manicured debutante with unblemished knees, brand-new boots, and a staggeringly low tomboy quotient. Mike was an amiable, sinewy American backpacker we adopted in the parking lot.

Inner Peace

The coastal paths hit you with an other-world strangeness, an almost heart-aching beauty. Each step brings the urgent, whispering realization that you’re here and it’s now. The past and future fall away. I’ve always thought of hiking as a visceral form of meditation, each step taking you further away from your cares, scooping out your preoccupations, and generally what an Afrikaner hiking friend called, “Sorting out your kop”.

Loeries

The undergrowth was pervaded by the smell of a fibrous barked tree (I forget its name) that filled the air with a clammy,sweaty biltong smell. We did glimpse a Knysna Loerie in one though, but at the distance it was more a Technicolor smear than a majestic profile.

Birdlife along the Trail is stupendous, though. The animals, bush, and even the stones seem to flicker and hum with a resonance that must be seen, not described. Check out Tim's gallery here.

Saved by the Beastie Boys

Hours of walking and you get the oddest songs on the brain, over and over. Mike and mine’s was Paul Revere, by the Beastie Boys, a song with such stirring lyrics as:

‘The sun is beating down on my baseball hat,
The air is gettin' hot the beer is getting flat’

We both gave in and started singing it. Mike knew the words so he sang and I was relegated to human beat box. That song got us up some of the stiffest hills, and it beat hell out of 16 bottles sitting on a wall.

Couple therapy

I had sense-of-humour-failure on day three. Hill after sheer hill had me gulping for air like an asthmatic goldfish on tarmac. Duane and Saffron dropped back after the first few km. With trembling legs, I stared up a sheer stepped incline and gasped for the ninth time, ‘you’ve got to be [censored] kidding me.’

With the Beastie Boys on continuous loop, Mike and I finally made the top, collapsed and shared some biscuits and water. After a time, we heard Duane and Saffron labouring up the hill.

Saffron clambered to the summit and collapsed back onto her pack like a cap-sized tortoise, her face a sweating tomato red. She then launched into a string of cuss words that’d make a maggot blush.

Basically, she was vexed that she and her [censored] boyfriend hadn’t just [censored] stayed home and watched this [censored] on the [censored] Nature Channel. When Duane suggested she relax and enjoy the view, she lunged for his eyes.

Loo with a view

The paths and facilities on the trail are world-class, not least the loos with a view. Each camp toilet is nestled above camp, with a one-way glass picture looking out onto the ocean. With its immaculate paths and welcoming chalets the otter trail is a triumph of good organization, set in wilderness far beyond words.

In the 9 to 5 grind of our days, a lot of us aren’t making memories that we’ll be nostalgic for. The Otter Trail stays with you for life.

It’s worth a years wait, and if a rice pudding like me can do it- so can you, dammit.

Grab one of our deals and get adventurous this winter.

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