Hike the Chokka Trail near St Francis

Hike the Chokka Trail and you’ll experience an abundance of fresh air, dunes as wide as in the Sahara, comfy accommodation and calamari fresh from the ocean you’re walking next to.

I’m on my hands and knees on a sand dune in the Kouga region. Kouga is an old Khoi word that means “place of abundance” and the region stretches roughly from the Baviaanskloof to the seaside village of Cape St Francis. Go to Google Maps, switch to satellite view and you’ll see a long, thin dune field between Oyster Bay and St Francis Bay, wedged between coastal forests to the north and south. You can’t access this place in a vehicle – you have to walk. At first there seems to be nothing “abundant” about the dunes that we’ve been clambering up and down for hours. It’s easy to imagine being lost in the Namib or the Sahara. But get down on all fours – like the hikers are currently doing – and you’ll see how much life exists in this unique ecosystem. It was a giant zebra agate snail that initially caused us to pause. The snail sailed regally, even reverentially, past the sun-bleached shells of its ancestors. Now that we’ve stopped, we notice other things, like the spoor of a honey badger that must have taken a short cut over the damp sand earlier this morning, and the countless tiny footprints made by a troop of vervet monkeys that must have scurried noisily back into the milkwoods and num-num shrubs. Most amazingly, right at our feet, we see small bones, shells, shards of clay pots and slivers of stone axes – a Khoi midden that has been buried under the shifting sand for centuries, only to be unearthed by the westerly wind that blows through here. Each member of the hiking party takes a close look at this treasure without disturbing it, then we stand up, dust ourselves off and move on. The sand will cover it again and it will remain hidden for 10, 20 or 100 years, until the next group of hikers “discovers” it afresh. You can’t help but think of all the people who have wandered through here for thousands of years, from one place to eat and sleep to the next; just like we’re doing on the Chokka Trail…