I wanted to walk in the countryside and decided we should visit the De Hoop Nature Reserve – it was not a wholly successful expedition. Firstly I had not found the map on the Reserve website… Big mistake! It clearly showed the roads we should have considered.
Instead we set off down the N2 from Swellendam expecting to see a sign to the Reserve – next big mistake! Incredibly there is no signpost on the N2! We didn’t have a SatNav in the car and we didn’t want to use our UK mobile phones to navigate. We therefore passed the road signposted ‘Malgas’ and ‘Infanta’, and another signposted ‘Spitskop’, and instead took the third road in desperation and found ourselves driving to Bredasdorp.
Eventually we turned left on a dirt road – to Malgas!
Finally we saw a sign saying ‘De Hoop’ and turned off, found an entrance gate, paid the fee and collected a map of sorts, topped the hill…
Some people had used another form of transport…
We found ourselves at the De Hoop Collection – not quite what we had in mind… (Here are photographs of the De Hoop Farm in 1998.)
Die Mond…
And then we headed back to Swellendam…
On the Bredasdorp/Malgas road we turned onto the road signed for Spitskop, a farm, and hoped we would eventually come out on the N2 to Swellendam.
We didn’t have our walk, but the scenery was absolutely stunning, and the Spitskop Road led to the N2, and Swellendam.
You may be interested in
Walks available are: De Hoop Coastal Trail, The Klipspringer Trail (6 kms), The Vlei Trail, The Potberg Mountain Trail
De Hoop Nature Reserve
missmulder
I love the reserve. We have stayed there a few times and the beaches are divine.
Candy Blackham
Thank you for visiting. I loved what we saw, but as you can see we found it difficult to work out how things worked, and the information at the gate was not good. Nevertheless I would try again, and I would love to walk along the beaches. Perhaps one should go to the Potberg end?