Most people wait at least a year to hike the Otter Trail and some wait more than that. Not us though! When we were in Coffee Bay I checked the Otter Trail reservations page to find 4 spots open on September 11th. I immediately called the SAN Parks reservations hotline and booked us two spots. Our Canadian friends Mike and Suzanne, who we met at Coffee Shack, were quite interested in doing the trail as well and we encouraged them to think hard and fast about it before the last 2 spots disappeared. They bit the bullet and booked onto the trail as well and so the adventure was set! Before we arrived in the village of Storms River where the trail begins, we bought our food and last trekking items and had a couple days to prepare and get organized before the trek. We stayed at Axe n' Tube backpackers in Storms River and arranged for our extra bags to be taken to Natures Valley at the trail's end. I've decided to break the blog post up into each day on the trail for increased enjoyment! Our first day of hiking on the Otter Trail was mostly a pleasant one. The day was relatively short with only about 2 hours of hiking. We started early so that we could take our time getting used to the weight of our packs and also so that we could get into our first camp early and enjoy the coast. Along the way we passed a huge cave and a majestic waterfall that emptied into the ocean! Our first camp was a short 20 minute walk from the waterfall. One of the cool things about the Otter Trail is that you don't have to carry a tent because accommodation is provided in two 6 person cabins at four overnight stops. Although that sounds quite appealing, we still had to carry everything else like food, sleeping bags and clothing. We were the first ones to arrive at camp and after a couple hours the 8 remaining hikers tromped in. There are two 3-tier bunk beds in each cabin. So depending on how many people are in each group, hikes from the same party might have to split up but our sleeping arrangement worked out pretty well. Three South Africans stayed in our cabin and we would drag an extra mattress over from the other cabin each night and two of the South Africans made a double bed on the floor. We carried in fresh meat and veggies on the first day knowing that we could manage the extra weight so we fired up the braai and watched the stars come out! Day two proved to be a bit more challenging than day one but we were told that it had the most beautiful scenery of the whole trek. With the beautiful lookouts came grueling hills that seemed to never end. Day two also brought on our first river crossing, the Kleinbos. At first we thought we made it to the river and we were surprised to see how low its level was. Turns out that we were a couple kilometers shy of the real thing, but when we arrived at the real thing it wasn't too tough to cross. We had to wade through thigh deep water but the river was narrow and it only took a few minutes for all of us to cross. We were up and hiking early on the third day as we had to cross two rivers. We knew that we could cross the first one at low tide and we found out later that that was a good idea. We managed to stroll across the Geelhoutbos River in only about ankle deep water and when we ran into the other group they had crossed at high tide and ended up swimming! Our second river crossing was a different story, however. We arrived at high tide and Andrew tried to cross but about 2 meters into the crossing he was already waist deep so rather than swim we decided to wait it out. We had a little picnic along the river shore, enjoyed the sunshine, played cards and waited for nature to do its thing and lower the tide dropped and we were able to cross in knee deep water. We arrived into camp around 6:30pm, ate dinner and prepared for an early departure the next morning. I mean really early. Everyone talked about day 4. We heard plenty of stories about how it was by far the hardest of all the days because it was not only physically challenging but mentally as well. We woke up at 2:30am and were on the trail by 3. We had 10 km to cover before we arrived at the notorious Bloukrans River crossing. We were told that even at low tide it can be quite difficult to cross. The South Africans that were sharing our cabin had done the Otter Trail years ago and they seemed to remember crossing the Bloukrans at low tide and the water was over the waists, but at least they didn’t have to swim. Unfortunately we weren’t so lucky this year. At low tide the river was still raging and it seemed as though the sandbank that hikers once used to walk across the river was gone. Our only option was to swim. When we were undressing and putting our packs into the survival bags (gigantic red glorified garbage bags) we bought it started to pour rain; our luck wasn’t improving. Courtney and I made the mistake of packing our survival bag too early and when we tried to carry it to the river’s edge we slipped and dropped it on some sharp rocks and punctured it. Luckily the South Africans decided to cross at the same time as us and they brought a 50m rope to use to stop the river’s current and the ocean’s waves from dealing them a good beating and then sending them out to sea. Once the rope was tied at both ends we began ferrying bags across the river. Mike and Suzanne had worse luck than us when they opened their survival bag they found out that they were sold a small one that could barely fit one of their packs. While Mike was crossing the bag burst open and flooded leaving his pack soaked. Fortunately none of their electronics were damaged! Courtney and I had to borrow a survival bag from the South Africans to get our packs across. We all swam holding onto the rope and once all the bags were across I untied the rope and swam with it until Courtney decided to give me a free ride across and towed me in using the rope. The adventure was only half over. We crossed to a rock wall and we had to hurry to get up onto the bank as the tide rushed in. Courtney and I were the last ones to get going and we were getting ancy waiting to cross the rocks so we took the route that was “not recommended” on the map that the park gave us. The route was a series of ropes anchored into the rock face that went straight up. I'm not exaggerating. They don't recommend this route for a reason and the reason is that if you fall there's no chance you won't be pretty badly hurt or worse. We took it anyway and we made it up after some heart pounding moments scaling the wet rock face. Once we were up we took a route back down to meet the rest of the group and help them get onto flat ground safely. Unfortunately for us the day was not yet over, not even close. We still had another 4 kilometers of huge uphills and downhills to go before we reached the final camp. When we made it into camp everyone crashed and just relaxed for the rest of the day knowing that we had finished the most challenging part of the trail. Our last day was a short hike out over some rolling green hills and finally crossing the beach at Nature's Valley. We were tired but it was well worth it. We can now see why the Otter Trail is one of the world's premier hikes!
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