Another Cape Point Hike: The Shipwreck Trail and Beyond…

This past Friday was a day out for us at Cape Point, turns out we just can’t get enough of exploring this place… As usual our morning began with some time spent with our incredible ranger and creating our own spotter’s guides…

Creating our own Spotter’s Guides.

To create a guide book you need to do a little research first…

So we had a close up look at local plants…

Birds… of the ostrich variety…

And reptiles…

And mammals…

And of course the baboons…

On to the Hike

Always our main purpose for visiting the park is a hike and a bit of adventure exploring, this month we we started out eagerly on the Shipwreck Trail at Olifantsbos and then kept on heading south until we reached GifKommetjie.

The first forty five minutes was pretty easy walking…

Ambling along the beach to the point…

The only difficulty at this stage was hiking through soft sand can get a little well tiresome…

But as soon as we started to see traces of shipwrecks our curious spirits were lifted…

As we reached the point we discovered why this part of the hike is called the Shipwreck Trail…

The Beach of Wrecks

One of us was hoping to find treasure…

Not to mention birds galore…

And skeletons of all shapes and sizes…

Overlooking this part of the hike is an old navy look out that we spotted in our very first Cape Point Hike, the Sirkelsvlei route, about a year ago…

A walk out to the wrecks is a perfectly doable and fun hike for a family with a range of athletic abilities… be fairly careful to choose a wind free day.

We looked for a sheltering rock to have our lunch and then we began our journey refreshed…

Treasures in the Sand

We continued to head south along the beach towards Gifkommetjie… spurred on by treasures in the sand…

Some of the treasures were running around on two legs… if you stand very still you will spot them dashing about…

And we were very excited to find this untouchable treasure… we quickly moved on, not wanting to disturb the parents.

On and On…

It did become apparent that this was one beach hike that was going to be harder than we expected… between rock hopping

And vast tracts of sand…

It wasn’t so much the endless sand but it was a very windy day and the sand blasting was relentless… and then rocky shores…

And did I mention the blasting wind…

Some of us were caught by a wave…

Others were quite happy to make use of the play things that presented themselves on the beach and to stomp on…

It was hard work… this was definitely training our hearts and minds for future things!!!

And any distractions from the sand blasting were good to distractions…

Though I must say we didn’t expect to find a tortoise on the beach…

There is a secret to walking sandy beaches… try and find the hard sand… so we look for the buck footprints and trail them…

Not only do the prints show you the way to go but they often leads to…

Bontebok

We knew that when we reached this last bit of wreck we were nearing the end… and we were really looking forward to the end at this stage…

The Last Stretch

And I am not sure who was more surprised to see each other…

Just a few more sites to see as we wandered along the base of the ridge…

The roar of the ocean drowned out the sound of the plane until it was right upon us…

Nearly, nearly there…

Friends to welcome us at the finish… and a little sand frog.

But the End that Wasn’t the End…

We all forgot about the steep climb up to the look out at Gifkommetjie right at the end of our very long march down the beach, everyone was tired and we could have done with an elevator at this stage…

Steep indeed and we were all so tired… but when you think you cannot do another step, somehow you always manage too…

Totally worth the view at the end of a long day…

And that’s us… another very blustery hike under our belts.

Other SAN PARKS Hiking Posts

Hiking in the Cape Peninsula

• Se7en + 1 Tips to Great Hiking with Kids.
• Se7en + 1 Go Exploring in Newlands Forest.
• Se7en + 1 Climb Table Mountain to the Top…
• Table Mountain a National Park Right in the City Center

Cape Point and Outings with SAN Parks

• The Easiest Hike in Cape Point by Far
• Se7en + 1 Hike the Burn at Cape Point.
• A Family Friendly Hike in Cape Point Nature Reserve.
• Se7en+1 Meet Up with the Cape Leopard Trust and More Hiking in Cape Point: KanonKop to Smitswinkel Bay, overlooking False Bay.
• Se7en + 1 Go Out Walking: The SirkelsVlei Walk at Cape Point.
• Se7en + 1 Steps to a Great Rock Pooling Outing… Venus Pools.
• Se7en + 1 Steps to a Beach Clean-Up.
• Under an African Sky, We Went to Meet the Bontebok.
• A fynbos Hike through Cape Point Nature Reserve.
• Se7en+1 Join an Amazing Race in the Cape Peninsula Region of the Table Mountain National Park.

Silvermine

• A Scientific Discovery, Silvermine River Study and River Pollution in Se7en Steps.
• In Search of Spring at Silvermine.
• A Sensational Hike – in Silvermine.
• It’s Silvermine Again.
• Se7en Visit Silvermine.
• The Wild Card and Potential Outings.