Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
BIANCA COLEMAN
During the Camissa Tunnel Tour you’ll have a chance to confront a number of fears, writes
I have no idea how I was expecting to enter the tunnel that runs all the way beneath the city –a magical doorway in the side of the mountain perhaps – but it certainly wasn’t through a manhole cheerfully marked by a flag just in case we didn’t realise what was required of us.
We circled this narrow portal, wondering how on earth we would get down there. It wasn’t too late to back out; my flat is very close by and I could easily have run away. I wouldn’t have even needed an Uber.
But I have been trying to do this tour for about a year and a half. At least that is how long it’s been since I first got in touch with the organisers. I’ve known about it for much longer and they have been operating for 14 years. A combination of availability, tour dates and weather conditions had dragged it out. After all that time it seemed poor form to be chicken.
Once we had all donned gumboots and headlamps, it turned out it wasn’t that difficult to get down that hole. At the bottom of it is a round tunnel with water running down the middle. This is the river which flows from the mountain and was once exposed before being enclosed in the tunnel.
It runs all the way to the ocean and we were to walk two kilometres of it to the Castle.
Along the way, there are several manholes and streams feeding into the tunnel. It didn’t take long to realise the highest concentration of cockroaches was around these spots.
This is where I point out this is not a glamorous or typically touristy adventure. It is hardcore and it’s not easy on the body or the brain. But it is a great thing to say you have done: walked under Cape Town along a river in a tunnel filled with cockroaches.
There are also freshwater crabs, frogs and Coke tins rushing by – which create a weird echo – but thankfully no rats. There are lots of cobwebs too so there was much grimacing, arm waving and selfslapping on my part.
Of course it is dark but the headlamps prevent the idea from sinking in too much and occasional shafts of light spike down from the manholes above.
At one point we stopped and I just happened to look up, more for divine help than anything else, and was rewarded with the surprise of being directly under one such grate, high above me at the top of a cobwebed chute. It was unexpected and quite beautiful.
The walk is tough; it is mostly too slippery to walk in the river so you have to straddle it, resulting in a very uncomfortable waddling gait which is hell on the legs and ankles.
I was whimpering like a girl long before it was over and three days later my calves were still screaming in agony. It’s not always like this – weather conditions will determine that – and guide Dwain Esterhuizen said it was a particularly challenging day.
Psychologically, it’s an interesting exercise as you confront your fears – the dark, that there is no way out, the goggas, whether you’re going to fall on your bum in the water which would have made me extremely unhappy – but there is definitely a sense of achievement at the end, along with jokes about the light at the end of the tunnel, obviously.
Yes I suffered (a certain level of fitness is required), no I won’t do it again. But I have the bragging rights for life.
● For more information and to book go to http://activitybridge.com/ book?activityid=2275 where you’ll find all the details about price, what is included, what to bring and not bring. available at the concierge’s desk.
● To book a guide, call the hotel on 021 483 1000 or Everard Read on 021 418 4527. The exhibition is there till next month.