Arangieskop Up and Away
“Mmm. You might want to go easy on the wine and goodies if you’re climbing Arangieskop,” photographer Shaen Adey and I are advised by a group of mountain club members who we bump into at the Ou Meul Bakery near Rawsonville.
Described by hiking guru, the late Mike Lundy, as ‘the Everest of Western Cape trails’, the overnight Arangieskop Hiking Trail up the 1 698-metre peak overlooking the Cape Winelands town of Robertson has a fearsome reputation. Conceding that our bulging packs are already heavy, we put a bottle of red, along with olives and biscuits, back on the shelves.
A glorious drive through the Breede River Valley takes us to Dassieshoek Nature Reserve. The daunting, grey cliffs of the Langeberg rise up in front of us as, in drizzle, we follow the white boot prints from the trailhead. Woodpeckers drum noisily in
