ESCAPE
WILDEKRANS COUNTRY HOUSE, DATING BACK TO 1811, IS THE BASE FOR THE BLUE MOUNTAIN TRAIL.
ELGIN AT WALKING PACE
BY MILOU STAUB
White sand is not what I expected to find here – not this far from the coast, and not after days walking through fynbos, vineyards and mountain folds. Yet beside a quiet river in the Elgin Valley, the bank lies powdery and pale beside water alive with birds and frogs.
The Blue Mountain Trail is a three-day slackpacking experience through the Elgin Valley, with Wildekrans Country House as its base. Instead of carrying your life on your back and moving from lodge to lodge, you head out each morning with guides before returning to the same comfortable bed each evening. My kind of hiking.
There is walking, certainly. Plenty of it. But the trail is also an invitation to slow down enough to notice what would otherwise disappear through a car window.
Our guides, Andreas and Patrick, turn the mountains into something of an open-air classroom. Patrick has a particular passion for birds and flowers, while Andreas’ s knowledge stretches across the plants, fynbos, and natural systems surrounding us. Tiny flowers warrant inspection. Birds interrupt conversations. Streams become breakfast stops, with tea, coffee, and food carried onto the trail – because apparently hiking is more civilised than I had been led to believe.
On one section, plants have been ripped from between the rocks, their bulbs targeted by baboons. Before long, we meet the culprits. Two relaxed baboons are walking the trail ahead of us, completely unconcerned by our presence. For a while, they dictate the pace. We keep our distance as they disappear around bends before reappearing further ahead. A useful reminder that we are visitors here – and they most certainly have right of way. Our guides explain that, provided neither feels threatened, hikers and baboons can coexist peacefully.
82 INBOUND SA / NOVEMBER 2026