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Riaan Manser takes Grabouw, home to the only bicycle hotel and museum in Africa – Trail’s End.
International explorer with multiple world-firsts, Riaan Manser, takes Grabouw, home to the only bicycle hotel and museum in Africa – Trail’s End.
“Apple country” in South Africa is also “mountain-biking country”.
Like me, you may have also wondered what the apple farmers do in those months they have to watch their apples grow. Curbing boredom and maintaining sanity requires building mountain-biking trails. And good ones at that!
An hour outside Cape Town and you are already breathing purer air and smelling the crispness of apple-scented nature at every turn.
Grabouw is home to the only bicycle hotel and museum in Africa – Trail’s End. A venue that is authentically outdoors, if ever there was one. Granted a 4.7 Google rating and a 4.9 TripAdvisor rating, this rustic hotel keeps the main thing the main thing: the outdoors.
Hiking, running, swimming, and even some motorised activities such as quad biking are available in these valleys. The reception and staff at Trail’s End are a one-stop shop for information and bookings.
The accommodation is comfortable and, dare I say, “too spacious”. They could easily double the room numbers if they halved the floor plans. But then again, knowing what some bicycles cost these days, I would also want the option of having a spot for her inside my room. Makes sense.
What stands out most, though, in relation to the personality of this place, is the incredible restaurant and bar area. This place is where you want to be after a rugged and tough day outside. Fireplaces in winter and ice-cold draught beer options for summer.
The food is as you would expect. Good! We all know that in South Africa, you don’t have a business if you don’t have great food. And no one is more fussy than a fatigued and demanding mountain biker.
Trail’s End also offers conference facilities and other traditional event hosting, like birthdays and weddings, that cater for a decidedly more “fresh air” theme.
Grabouw is home to the only bicycle hotel and museum in Africa - Trail’s End.
Grabouw has some of SA’s best mountain biking trails, with the crispness of apple-scented nature at every turn.
Grabouw is home to the only bicycle hotel and museum in Africa - Trail’s End.
Hiking, running, swimming, and even some motorised activities such as quad biking are available in Grabouw’s scenic valleys.
Only an hour outside Cape Town and you are already breathing purer air and smelling the crispness of Grabouw’s apple-scented nature at every turn.
Grabouw’s scenic valleys are made for hiking, running, and swimming.
Grabouw is home to the only bicycle hotel and museum in Africa – Trail’s End.
Only an hour outside Cape Town and you are already breathing purer air and smelling the crispness of Grabouw’s apple-scented nature at every turn.
The bicycle museum is included if you are a hotel guest, and will entertain and amaze even the non-cycling clientele. An original Penny-Farthing bicycle is always an extraordinary sight.
Probably the most famous bike in African cycling history is the one in this museum: the only bicycle to have circumnavigated the entire continent of Africa. My bicycle, in fact. I had thought this bike would be in my private care for the remainder of her existence.
But owners Pieter and Brenda Silberbauer and museum curator Mike Bruton convinced me the end of the road is actually an infinite term. This grand lady of bike touring history (surprisingly a 26er) has to be physically seen to understand and absorb the enormity of that Africa circumnavigation effort: the first journey in my explorer career.
READ | Africa South-to-North, re-imagined
And now it’s the star of one of South Africa’s best-selling children’s books, My First African Adventure, crowned “Overall Winner” in the SA Book Awards 2023.
For families, we hope the book and the original bike at Trail’s End will be the start of many a bicycle dream, story and journey, like Nelson Mandela once told me: a bicycle journey that will “inspire the youth of the continent”.
Whether for a weekend away or just a day out, Trail’s End is the start of something special.
The outdoors is screaming for you. Time to listen.
*Riaan Manser is a pioneering international explorer with multiple world-firsts and has joined the team as the new editor of News24 Outdoors, driven by Ford.
