The day dawned bright and beautiful and we knew it was going to be a lovely day by the seaside! When I booked our accommodation at Storms River I couldn’t find two consecutive nights in a chalet or any of the other ‘fancy’ types of accommodation, which is why we ended up in a forest hut on Saturday night.
Below are some more pictures of the forest huts, and I have to say, they look a lot nicer in the sunshine! For Sunday night I booked a chalet however, which I was very much looking forward to! Unfortunately it also meant we had to check out of the forest hut and book in again into the chalet, as well as packing up all our stuff and being ‘homeless’ between 10am and 2pm.
We decided to put the ‘homeless’ time to good use and went on the Waterfall Hike, which is about a 6km round trip along the coast, that also happens to be the first 3km of the Otter Trail, to go and see a waterfall. The route is described as difficult but we are fairly fit and healthy (and a lot younger than some of the people we saw walking it!), so thought we’d give it a go. It was a lovely clear day, just sunny and warm enough to be good hiking weather, while not being too warm. The first part of the walk lulls you into a false sense of security, before you hit a patch of rock climbing, followed by boulder hopping (spot Brian in one of the pictures in the boulder field)! Some of it was a bit nerve wracking, but also good fun and we made good time to the waterfall where loads of people were hanging out looking at the waterfall, resting and relaxing. I was surprised at the amount of people we saw at the waterfall as we only saw a couple of other walkers on the way there and I didn’t think it was that popular a walk. We spent a bit of time there and I had my sandwich before heading back to our car. It was a good walk but I was very glad I didn’t have to do it carrying a backpack containing my food and clothes for 5 days!
As we still had time before being able to check into our chalet, we decided to do the suspension bridge walk as well – along with about a bazillion other people. As it was a nice day clearly everyone from the surrounding area decided to come out for the day and the restaurant and parking lots were packed with people enjoying the sunshine. The suspension bridges are worth making the effort for as well, though my legs were not particularly happy with me at this point. Though I’m fairly fit, climbing up and down hundreds of steps, rocks and boulders are not really part of my normal fitness regime!
After finishing our second walk of the day we were ready for a cold beer, so picked up the key to our chalet, unpacked and relaxed on the deck in the sunshine – with a beer of course! The chalet was a VERY decent upgrade, with a separate bedroom, open plan lounge/kitchen on different levels, DSTV, heater, cooker etc – basically everything you’d need for a long stay. The chalet also had great views and as we’d bought supplies in Plett the day before, we ended up staying in, drinking beer, eating steak and enjoying the amazing views and the waves crashing against the rocks below. It turned into another fairly early night, but this time in much greater comfort, with the heater on! I really like falling asleep hearing waves crash on the rocks outside…
Biltong and Burger 