Garden Route Unearthed

Antije se Pad is a magnificent 5-day slackpacking trail located in the Eastern Cape about a 1.5 hours drive from Kareedouw.

In June 2024 a friend of ours, Heidi, knowing how much Bryan and I love our day-hikes, asked if we would be keen to join her and a couple of others on a 4-night/5-day slackpacking trail in the Eastern Cape. Heidi had found a slackpacking trail called Antije se Pad, located about 2 hours 45 minutes drive from our home in Sedgefield. It sounded like an amazing adventure, so I asked Heidi to send me all the details so that Bryan and I could mull it over and decide what to do.

In 1996, I (with three other friends) embarked on an 11-day trek in the Himalayas and it was simply fantastic. We had a guide and a sherpa to carry our bags and I was 22 years old, so full of energy and super fit! In 2008, a friend and I walked the Banks Peninsula trail in South Island New Zealand. On that 5-day hike we carried our own backpacks, food and bedding and it was also simply fantastic and I was 34. Since then, I hadn’t been on a multi-day hike and neither had Bryan. His last overnight hike had been Kilimanjaro in 1993, when he was 15. So, now that we had a few more years on us, were we fit enough to really enjoy this experience?

Bryan and I spent a few days studying the route, reading as much info as we could about the trail, the distances covered each day, elevation climbed and time it would take to cover these daily distances and eventually decided we were definitely up for the trip, but felt we should try and get some extra hiking trails in before our departure day.

Fortunately, we had plenty of time to get some hiking kms under our belt, as it was decided our departure day would be Friday 1st November 2024.

The 1st November arrived and we were off. We met Heidi, David and Sally and headed off on convoy to the Antije se Pad base camp. We had decided to have the first night at base camp so that we could start the trail bright and early the next morning. We would meet Herman at base camp where he would explain the trail, how the slackpacking worked and after a braai and a night there we would begin Day-1 of the Antije se Pad slackpacking trail.

We had food enough for 5 days and 5 nights and thanks to Heidi’s organising and planning we knew we would not go hungry. We also had our one trommel (container) each, that Herman (the gentleman running the Antije se Pad slackpacking trail) would transport to our two huts once we had started the trail. The trommel had to contain everything we needed other than the food, so we had packed very carefully making sure we had just what we needed and not too much that we might have to leave something vital (like the beers and box of wine) behind.

We stopped at the padstal on the Nature’s Valley road, called Nature’s Way, for a finally “real” meal before we had to fend for ourselves in the Wilderness and then continued on our journey to Antije se Pad. The route was beautiful and when we had to stop on the dirt road to let the horsemen and sheep dog herding the sheep home for the evening, we knew we were far from everything.

We arrived at base camp at about 4.30pm, unloaded our trommels and the food and met Herman for our Safety Briefing and introduction to Antije se Pad and how the next few days were to be arranged. There had been heavy rains a few days before our arrival, so Herman had warned us that there would be several river crossings to navigate and had suggested that we bring water shoes as well as our hiking boots.

Thanks goodness for this suggestion as there was water everywhere and we definitely needed those water shoes!

After our briefing we had a braai together and then had an early night. We had agreed we would aim to leave by 7am the following morning before it got too hot. That meant we had to get up at 5.30am to sort out the food and trommels before we left. We were all very excited to get going on this wonderful journey together.

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