We would like to compile a short history of the Masihambe Hiking Club. Please think about it. It wasn't always called by that name, there were a few different name changes. 'Masihambe' is a Zulu word, and, in English, it translates something like, 'Let's go together' - rather appropriate for a hiking club, don't you think? Let me start the ball rolling with some reminiscences:
I came on board more than twenty years ago, in '87 or '88. My first big hike with the guys was the eight-day Outeniqua Trail, in 1988 or 89, which runs from George to Knysna, but up in the mountains, you know, the same ones where Hansie's aeroplane balanged. Hansie Cronje, Springbok cricket captain!
We left Cape Town in my Ford Laser and Gavin's old VW Kombi; the Kombi broke down in Elsies River and we had to go to a spares shop to buy parts! Then, when we got to the Du Toit's Kloof tunnel, Traffic Control escorted us all the way through the tunnel (because the Kombi looked a bit dubious, with its top speed - on a level road - of all of 80km/h!). I found that nogal embarrassing, but, in hindsight, it was hilarious, all part of the fun.
Those eight days on the Outeniqua were probably the best eight days of my life. After about the third day I went into different mode, a complete different way of being, it was just SO cool, and I could have gone on like that forever, I didn't want the hike to end! Ever.
I remember the first day, we had been hiking for hours and hours, up hill and down dale, and I was beginning to wonder when were we ever gonna get to the huts, then we crested a rise and I saw this huge big mountain, and right on the very top, as small as a pinhead, you could see a hut, and I thought to myself, 'Jislaaikit, moet ek nog daar gaan opklim.....'
Eventually, when we made the huts, the first order of business, for me, was to get a shower before my body cooled down, since there's only cold rainwater to shower with on hiking trails. The ablution huts were a little away from the dormitory huts, and I found out that a storm had torn the door off the shower cubicle. Luckily, the doorway faced away from the main huts, so I decided to go for it. The shower hut happened to be right on the edge of a steep drop-off, there was the most spectacular profusion of wild flowers in bloom everywhere, and I had probably the best shower I would ever have in my life - it was like being in one of those 'Timotei' adverts, only better!
I came across snakes in the pathway on every single one of those eight days, they were mostly berg adders, like a puffadder, but greyish in colour and smaller, and, because of the perpetual overcast, cloudy, rainy, coolish weather, they didn't constitute a threat because that kind of weather made them torpid.
There were two things that really still stand out in my memory. One time, about midday, we came upon this high peak, at the top of which swallows were nesting. The swallows would launch themselves and come down in a glide, short little wings stretched taut and, because of the great height, approaching terminal velocity, and they would come past us, only metres away, with a sound like a jet aircraft! Another time, late in the afternoon, we were all lying, exhausted from hiking all day, pap tyres, on the long wooden stoep of this particular hut, which was opposite a forest, and, as it began to get dark, all these fireflies started to glow on and off in the forest, and that continued until well after dark. That was magical. Indescribable, really.
The people, besides me, whom I can recall were on that hike were Gavin, Carol & Roger, who were not even an 'item' yet, Melanie, Barry (Melanie's boyfriend at the time), Amanda, Cledwin, Anton, Emil, Wally, Greg Simons and Glynnis, on whom, in those days, I had the biggest crush ever! Glynnis was supposed to be 'converted', or 'born again' or something, but she had this REALLY bawdy song she would sing each day on the trail, it went something like, 'O, Vuil Katrien was 'n [Afrikaans word for a sewing machine....]' and so on; it was a never-ending dirty ballad, in Afrikaans, very much like that Beatles song, 'Dirty Maggie Mae' (about the exploits of a real-life Liverpool prostitute). With my Catholic school upbringing, I couldn't get my mind around that one: here was this incredibly cute girl singing this incredibly dirty song - it just didn't add up!!!
Anton told an excruciatingly funny joke - of a bawdy nature, of course - which I cannot for the life of me remember. I can only remember the first line, it went, 'Hickory, dickory, dock....' The rest of it has been lost in the mists of time. But, during the hike, one had only to say, 'Hickory, dickory, dock...' to make everybody collapse in howls of laughter!
And if, way back then, Glynnis was cute, Melanie was sexy, really gorgeous, the kind of pin-up girl bomber crews would have painted onto their fuselage. That was the way things were, way back then.
We were a group of friends who used to go hiking now and then, and we formed a club primarily to enable us to raise funds legally. Now, twenty-something years later, with most of us married-with-kids, we are more like one big extended family. There's a word for that: it's called 'Tribe'. I like to think of us as one big extended family: a tribe.
Lots of Love
Pikkewyn
I came on board more than twenty years ago, in '87 or '88. My first big hike with the guys was the eight-day Outeniqua Trail, in 1988 or 89, which runs from George to Knysna, but up in the mountains, you know, the same ones where Hansie's aeroplane balanged. Hansie Cronje, Springbok cricket captain!
We left Cape Town in my Ford Laser and Gavin's old VW Kombi; the Kombi broke down in Elsies River and we had to go to a spares shop to buy parts! Then, when we got to the Du Toit's Kloof tunnel, Traffic Control escorted us all the way through the tunnel (because the Kombi looked a bit dubious, with its top speed - on a level road - of all of 80km/h!). I found that nogal embarrassing, but, in hindsight, it was hilarious, all part of the fun.
Those eight days on the Outeniqua were probably the best eight days of my life. After about the third day I went into different mode, a complete different way of being, it was just SO cool, and I could have gone on like that forever, I didn't want the hike to end! Ever.
I remember the first day, we had been hiking for hours and hours, up hill and down dale, and I was beginning to wonder when were we ever gonna get to the huts, then we crested a rise and I saw this huge big mountain, and right on the very top, as small as a pinhead, you could see a hut, and I thought to myself, 'Jislaaikit, moet ek nog daar gaan opklim.....'
Eventually, when we made the huts, the first order of business, for me, was to get a shower before my body cooled down, since there's only cold rainwater to shower with on hiking trails. The ablution huts were a little away from the dormitory huts, and I found out that a storm had torn the door off the shower cubicle. Luckily, the doorway faced away from the main huts, so I decided to go for it. The shower hut happened to be right on the edge of a steep drop-off, there was the most spectacular profusion of wild flowers in bloom everywhere, and I had probably the best shower I would ever have in my life - it was like being in one of those 'Timotei' adverts, only better!
I came across snakes in the pathway on every single one of those eight days, they were mostly berg adders, like a puffadder, but greyish in colour and smaller, and, because of the perpetual overcast, cloudy, rainy, coolish weather, they didn't constitute a threat because that kind of weather made them torpid.
There were two things that really still stand out in my memory. One time, about midday, we came upon this high peak, at the top of which swallows were nesting. The swallows would launch themselves and come down in a glide, short little wings stretched taut and, because of the great height, approaching terminal velocity, and they would come past us, only metres away, with a sound like a jet aircraft! Another time, late in the afternoon, we were all lying, exhausted from hiking all day, pap tyres, on the long wooden stoep of this particular hut, which was opposite a forest, and, as it began to get dark, all these fireflies started to glow on and off in the forest, and that continued until well after dark. That was magical. Indescribable, really.
The people, besides me, whom I can recall were on that hike were Gavin, Carol & Roger, who were not even an 'item' yet, Melanie, Barry (Melanie's boyfriend at the time), Amanda, Cledwin, Anton, Emil, Wally, Greg Simons and Glynnis, on whom, in those days, I had the biggest crush ever! Glynnis was supposed to be 'converted', or 'born again' or something, but she had this REALLY bawdy song she would sing each day on the trail, it went something like, 'O, Vuil Katrien was 'n [Afrikaans word for a sewing machine....]' and so on; it was a never-ending dirty ballad, in Afrikaans, very much like that Beatles song, 'Dirty Maggie Mae' (about the exploits of a real-life Liverpool prostitute). With my Catholic school upbringing, I couldn't get my mind around that one: here was this incredibly cute girl singing this incredibly dirty song - it just didn't add up!!!
Anton told an excruciatingly funny joke - of a bawdy nature, of course - which I cannot for the life of me remember. I can only remember the first line, it went, 'Hickory, dickory, dock....' The rest of it has been lost in the mists of time. But, during the hike, one had only to say, 'Hickory, dickory, dock...' to make everybody collapse in howls of laughter!
And if, way back then, Glynnis was cute, Melanie was sexy, really gorgeous, the kind of pin-up girl bomber crews would have painted onto their fuselage. That was the way things were, way back then.
We were a group of friends who used to go hiking now and then, and we formed a club primarily to enable us to raise funds legally. Now, twenty-something years later, with most of us married-with-kids, we are more like one big extended family. There's a word for that: it's called 'Tribe'. I like to think of us as one big extended family: a tribe.
Lots of Love
Pikkewyn
