The Outeniqua Multi-day Hike (Day 5) Fisantehoek to Harkerville THE END

Today is one those days where I just can’t get started!!! I’ve distracted myself by baking an apple crumble putting the fire on and packing away the laundry. So now I have no more excuses but to move.

The final day, day 5 of the 5 day Outeniqua hike, was predicted to be a very wet one. The storm had arrived the previous evening and blasted through with 40 kilometre winds and rain blowing sideways across our hut / old house that we had slept in. I slept well even with the storm outside and was keen to get a move on.

The 13 kilometre path from Fisantehoek Hut to Harkerville Hut wasn’t too eventful. Deep thick forest and downed trees after more deep thick forest and downed trees.

We started in light rain and thankfully the wind had stopped completely but there was more predicted so I just prayed it would hold off long enough for us to finish walking.

After about 10 minutes I packed my poncho away. The noise of that plastic fabric in my ears was driving me nuts. And besides, I had a rain jacket and rain cover on my bag and the trees would give us a certain level of protection from any downpours.

I had noticed that every day the kilometres were longer than the map said they would be and this day was no exception. Map said 12 kilometres in roughly 4-6 hours and we managed 13.5 kilometres in just over 3 hours. OUR PACE WAS FAST!!!

The gentle hills rolled on continuously with very little else changing other than the various fungi, most of which I had now seen on previous days in different parts of this vast forest. They were beautiful and peculiar and begged time to investigate but the onward march kept taking us toward the end.

Any #fungilovers out there please tell me what these babies are???

My fellow cackling gals continued ahead of me like the hunchback of Notre Dame, ponchos flowing behind them.

The downed trees were worrisome. Some were easy to step over, while others completely blocked the entire path and made us detour through thick dense bush to circumvent the blockage.

Other trees leaned on each other squeaking as the wind blew and daring us to pass below them. We absolutely had visions of trees coming down while we walked and kept our wits about us.

About half way through we crossed a jeep track and basked in the cool sunshine for 5 minutes before continuing on back into the dark forest.

One of the tricky obstacles, that seemed to be a theme on this day, were numerous wooden bridges. I guess on a dry warm day this would have been wonderful but on this damp mossy winters day the bridges became slip and slides!!! Every step was slow and deliberate in order to stay upright. Generally, the bridges went over especially muddy dips, and landing in that mud at any point would be quite the clean up operation.

We all got excited when we saw the Harkerville Hut sign!!! Whoop whoop!!! And there was another one, and another one and another one…. 5 signs and about 3 kilometres later we eventually popped out of the forest, after a last long uphill, to the Harkerville forest station where our cars were waiting for us.

HALLELUJAH!!!

Only the boys had arrived before us with 2 other small groups arriving shortly after us.

This point marked the end of 91.56 kilometres of hiking over the 5 days and 2647 meters of elevation accumulated.

Snow on nearby mountains

The forest and mountains had been our refuge from the real world and now it was time to get home.

I was surprised at how my body had handled the constant walking and most of all the big backpack. My feet were feeling tender, but the Vaseline trick had prevented any new blisters. The rest of my body felt tired but good. No major aches or pains that a hot bath couldn’t solve.

The last stretch of the trip took us to a little cabin on the side of the high way that overlooked a lake in Sedgefield. We were tired and it was too far to drive home without a hot bath and some real rest in a bed with an electric blanket.

The sleep was welcome (as was the slab of Cadbury I had stashed in my bag).

We lived to see another hike and crazily we only had a 3-day break before taking on the Cape Point Overnight Hike 😳. What were we thinking?????!!!

But that’s for another post on another day. I hope you enjoyed the adventure with me.

[//]:# (!pinmapple -34.047680 lat 23.230697 long The Outeniqua Multi-Day Hike (Day 5) Fisantehoek to Harkerville finish d3scr)