Grootvadersbosch is a lovely little nature reserve in the Langeberg mountains near Heidelberg. There is really lovely indigenous forest, and there are mountains! Nothing is flat here – it’s either up or down, which makes for some tough walking and mountain biking. We rode on two consecutive days on the neighbouring Grootvadersbosch Conservancy, which has four custom built mtb routes.
Day 1 we tackled the easiest route, which turned out to be not so easy after all. There are very big hills here, and the single-track and jeep tracks are rough, not manicured. To make matters worse, my bicycle’s brakes were stuck – permanently on! Even the flats felt like I was pedalling uphill, so my legs were shattered by the time we finished. We did spot a couple of bushbuck, so that was a bonus.
Day 2, after Nige the mechanic tried all sorts of things to fix my brakes, we headed off again, to tackle a different route. The brake situation was better, but not quite fixed. Glory be – the ride was difficult! The climbs were really big, rough and loose. The downs were rough. The flats were non-existent. The heat reached 35 degrees. Nige survived but had a hard ride; Ken and I were completely broken by the time we finished. We saw several buck – all unidentified – including a group of four running across the fields ahead of us.
We did try some more gentle activities, such as bird-watching. The two bird hides are high up in the forest canopy, and the birds seem to avoid this area completely, so we sat for a while in each of the towers, looking at really lovely trees, but no birds. From our braai room we did spot some birds on the edge of the forest, but birds in the forest are not easy to spot. The forest itself is really pretty, though.
