Hiking Heaven and Earth

No doubt thanks to lockdown, hiking has soared in popularity in South Africa over the last few years. While you might know all about what Table Mountain has to offer, Glamtrails –a venture from accredited mountain guide Tim Lundy – has opened a whole new area to explore: the Hemel en Aarde Valley.

Glamtrails came about after a chat with Ezanne Newton Johnson from Newton Johnson Wines, a winemaker who is passionate about the area and wanted to encourage others to walk between the vineyards, up through the mountains and experience the region’s flora, fauna and vistas. Tim set about researching, walking and designing the trails and now hikers can book several guided trails through the area which usually include a foodie experience such as a wine tasting or lunch at one of the vineyards.

We chatted with Tim about Glamtrails and hiking in the Hemel en Aarde Valley, and took the opportunity to pick his brain on his ideal hike, how he got started and what’s in his backpack at all times.

Hiking has been a part of my life since I was very young. I started hiking with my father when I was six, and we would do a different hike every Sunday. I was 10 when I began walking multi-day trails, which can be demanding but a lot of fun. I had a landscaping business for many years, but I was always dreaming about being on the trail somewhere in the mountains, and in my 30s, I started thinking about turning hiking into a business. I got my mountain guide qualification, wrote a book about hiking(Family Walks in the Western Cape), and have been building a small adventure business since then.

There’s a simplicity to hiking in Cape Town. It takes me only five minutes to drive to the start of a trail, and you don’t have to go far down a route before you feel like you are out in the wilds, far from the city buzz. My cellphone becomes a camera, and all the messages and calls stop because of poor coverage. I also love showing people what’s out there and hearing their appreciation of the landscape and scenery.

The perfect hike combines a good workout, good scenery, beautiful flora and fauna, and great company. I also appreciate a good pub at the end of it for a debriefing session.

We are spoiled for choice in South Africa for good trails, and I’m always looking for relatively unexplored places to walk for the first time. I love taking a few days to hike in the Cederberg-each walk is a different experience because of the time of year, the plants that are flowering at the time, the weather and the people joining me.

The original concept of Glamtrails is a bit different from the existing product. I was invited by one of the local wine farms to explore the possibility of linking a couple of farms with a walking trail, and we originally planned to create a multi-day trail through the valley that would allow visitors to immerse themselves in the area’s beauty, interact with locals and enjoy local produce. We soon realised, however, that this was impractical due to the lack of accommodation at specific points in the valley and the huge task of building a multi-day trail across the many privately owned estates, so we kept the trails short and manageable within a morning or afternoon. A multi-day trail is still on the cards, but it’s a long-term goal.

With Glamtrails, the focus is on the whole experience rather than the walk. Each Glamtrail has its own content and flavour. Some have a historical narrative, some focus on fauna and flora, and all of them include some culinary experience and wine, gin or beer tasting. We’ve found that the experience of walking through an incredible landscape for a couple of hours seems to heighten all senses, and this elevates the taste of the food and drink to follow. It’s incredibly immersive, relaxing, and a great way to disconnect from the everyday grind and reconnect with people.

We’ve since added two Glamtrails in Cape Town, based on five-star hotel offerings(Cellars Hohenort and Twelve Apostles Hotel), and we’ll continue to develop experiences.

Table Mountain offers some lovely walking trails, but many are now quite popular, even more so after lockdown restrictionslifted, and I know so many of them well. Walking in areas like the Hemel and Aarde Valley is fun because there are so many unexplored routes and unexpected and incredible vistas. The terrain and flora and fauna are very different, and there’s always a new plant to photograph and research, which I love.