When Life Gives You Thorns

Getting lost on a tough hike is sometimes the best way to find direction, writes Milton Schorr.

- Milton Schorr

We had been fantasising about breakfast even before we started the walk. Now, halfway up Chapman’s Peak, the thought of the impending meal was running through both of us.

“It’s a full, full plate,” I said, gasping a little at the steep gradient. “There’s no chance you’ll be hungry after.”

“Speak for yourself,” grunted Daniel, my son, clambering up the side of a rock in front of me, his 16-year-old back like a man’s beneath his clinging T-shirt.

Beyond him lay the curve of Hout Bay, a bowl of wind-tossed blue where pleasure boats churned out to Seal Island and its barking seal pups.

“Did I tell you that I took a trip to De Rust in December?” I asked.

“Yes, you did.”

“I went for a walk there, just like this one…”

I’d gone to De Rust in the Little Karoo for a three-day break. I’d seen a trail mentioned online – one that weaves to the foot of some fabled red hills. When I’d arrived at an adjacent wine farm to collect a permit, the woman there had given me a sheepish smile.

“No one has been in there for years,” she said. “I don’t know what the trail looks like.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied.

She looked at me, then she shook her head. “Don’t worry about paying,” she said, sliding the permit and an old printed map over the counter. “I don’t know what I’m selling you!”