The Mushroom Fundi

Table Mountain attracts all kinds of people – cyclists, hikers, tourists and the “mountain goats” who run to the top every day. And then there’s Gary Goldman, wandering around with a basket… What’s he doing – going on a picnic?

- WORDS & PICTURES SOPHIA VAN TAAK

Even before we meet, there's a sense of adventure in the air. “Bring a pocketknife and a headlamp,” Gary Goldman tells me in a WhatsApp message, followed by directions to the rendezvous point.

And now I’m here, shivering in the early morning dark in one of the highest streets in Newlands. A bakkie up the street flashes its lights and a silhouette gets out. Two four-legged shadows follow.

Gary greets me and retrieves a basket for each of us from the back of his bakkie. He calls the dogs softly and guides me to a gate in the fence – a shortcut into Newlands Forest.

I’ve never experienced the forest in this way. The dogs, Jack and Russell, take the lead in our headlamp beams. Moss-covered tree trunks float like spectres. A stream murmurs somewhere in the dark. Save for the sound of our footsteps on pine needles, everything is quiet. It rained last night and the soil breathes out the freshest, earthiest aroma.

Soon we reach the overgrown ruin of a cottage, once called Paradise. In the time of the Dutch East India Company, this was the home of the forest’s master woodcutter. And during the first British occupation of the Cape, Lady Anne Barnard lived here for a while with her husband Andrew, who was the colonial secretary. There were fruit trees around the cottage and Lady Anne kept chickens, small antelope, a breeding pair of secretarybirds and even a seal and a penguin in the brook!

The stories give the ruin a fantastical aura. But the magic we’re looking for is even deeper in the forest. Before we can continue, we first have to locate Russell, who is deaf and partially blind. Over there! A white ghost staring into nothingness. His dulled senses have lost our track.