The pearls of Paarl

The name Paarl conjures up the memory of intense summer heat shimmering off the huge granite megaliths that comprise the Paarl rocks – Paarl, Gordon’s and Bretagne. Our hiking group last visited this wondrous place in the suffocating heat of a January day and vowed never to do that in summer again. Of course, the weather in the Cape loves to play games, and yesterday the mercury shot up for an early heatwave, with only a gentle breeze forecast for relief.

Being around 100km from home, and the route encompassing the morning rush hour logjams, we arrived at the Paarl Nature Reserve at 9h30 and proceeded to take the long and winding gravel road up to Christmas Camp on the summit. A sign indicating the state of the road would have been most helpful, or better still, signs of maintenance work to repair the deeply rutted places where a low-slung car and nervous driver would have made it impassable. Reaching the picnic area some 30 minutes later, we decided on coffee break before the walk, then took the jeep track to do a small circumnavigation of the area.

Blackened remains of trees and bushes from past wildfires were evidence that the mountains were once thickly covered in proteas, but the vegetation has recovered well and there are still places that escaped the fire where the pincushions and sugarbushes are abundant, and even two areas with mature silver trees – a lovely surprise. Late spring flowers splashed colours of blue, orange, yellow and white as though flicked from an artist’s brush and I managed to add more new species to my ever-growing list of fynbos observations! The views across the valleys towards Wellington and Franschhoek are breath-taking even on a slightly smoky day and it is probably just as well that the road is in such poor condition, keeping human intrusion to a minimum. No littering or graffiti in this pristine landscape. Far below us, a train tooted at a level crossing, echoing up the mountains and triggering childhood memories of train travel. The patchwork quilt of vineyards of the Cape Wine Route spread as far as the eye could see, amply irrigated from the Berg River that winds through these parts on its way ‘uphill’ to Velddrif. The dam above Franschhoek glittered, proudly declaring itself full after abundant rain in the Dwarsberg, highest rainfall catchment in South Africa. Without this special group of mountains, Cape Town would probably not have sufficient water, and even then the winter rains are never guaranteed. A precarious situation.

The day grew ever warmer as we descended into a steep ravine, the path narrow and overgrown, slippery in places and shadeless. The air hung heavy as we continued up the jeep track with lunch on our minds, the cool shade of trees beckoning. But it was a long, long uphill, necessitating many stops on my part to take pictures and recover my heart rate. A little discomfort is soon forgotten as Nature keeps on giving, and within a few minutes of settling down round a picnic table and tucking into chicken, fruit and other delights we were restored and ready to tackle The Rocks!

It was back down the dreadful road and up onto The Rocks via an even more dreadful road to start the short climb up to the beacon on Gordon’s Rock, via The Chain. When I did this three years ago on a sweltering day, I collapsed exhausted (not quite) at the beacon and have the photo to prove it. Today, it was a doddle. Thanks to the disciplined hiking of belonging to a group, where everyone is encouraged not to give up, I have achieved a level of fitness I never even bothered to imagine – it’s never too late to do anything!

A fair breeze at the beacon meant holding on to hats – there would be no retrieving anything that blew away, and even the climb up caused a few slightly anxious moments as the imagination ran riot over rolling off that huge rock. Sometimes it’s best to just plod on without thinking. Half an hour and a distance of 1km and the conquering of the rock was complete! A marvellous morning on top of the world!