News24 | Riaan Manser | Redwood trees, kolkols, and a deep forest hike at famous Grootvadersbosch

Grootvadersbosch is situated in the Langeberg Mountains, and contains some redwood trees that can grow upwards of 60m tall.

Riaan Manser and his family spend the weekend driving to the Langeberg Mountains to take in the famous forests and towering redwood trees at Grootvadersbosch Nature Reserve.

With all this talk of the exponential technology curve, why then are cars not driving me and my family around already? This weekend I had the privilege to take my family deep into the Langeberg mountain range and the famous Cape Nature Grootvadersbosch Reserve.

I would have liked to have been sitting back in my leather chair on my journey, watching the world pass by, unplugged from the word go. It’s a three-hour investment of my time, and a very fair investment at that. So I would have loved to have been properly engaged with my little boys from the second they jumped into our new Ford Everest, plotting the chaos and activities that we had in mind for this bush escape.

The drive along the farm-lined N2 northwards is very pretty, but at times busy. It was smooth going and immediately a relief to be able to manoeuvre such a large vehicle at will and find relief from traffic build-up.

We drove into the reserve gates, collected our keys, and drove directly to Scolopia cottage: the largest of accommodation options offered to families by Cape Nature. Our own splash pool and kolkol wood-fired jacuzzi. Yes please!

It was the first time I have actually used one of these warm baths, so I will share some critical, newly acquired knowledge for free: get the fire going in the oven at least two hours before your planned submersion. Or you will be sitting in that brown, cold river water watching the fire alongside you burn, and then have to climb out and start the braai fire when it is beginning to really warm up.

If you have to ask about the braai and fire-pit facilities, then you don’t know South African accommodation. They would not be in business if this was not perfectly the centre stage of the cottage.

We had a long hike the following morning, deep into the forest. It was a route I chose because it takes us through the legendary redwood section of the forest. These trees are monstrosities, towering upwards of 60m into the sky, and reminded me again how small we as humans really are. Although these specific redwoods are “only” 130 years old, some redwoods are known to be a few thousand years old. Imagine all they have witnessed.

Baboons, monkeys, deer, and endless avifauna kept us company for these four hours – but most importantly, distracted the boys from the fact that they were doing a hike most adults would have found strenuous.

I did give in to streaming the Springbok rugby on my phone that afternoon. Again a positive for the boys, as the only cellular reception area we could get enough signal was around the communal pool. (There is very little reception in the reserve, thankfully.)

Sunday we spent in our cottage, fully utilising the facilities we had at our disposal, enjoying the benefits of a (pre-warmed) kolkol wood-fired jacuzzi. Aaaaaaah!

We have the new Ford Everest SPORT as our ride this month. We were blown away by what that 2.0L diesel engine can do at such short notice. As we drove back into our driveway that Monday morning, it struck me. I was, in fact, benefiting from technology and driverless cars but had not realised. I didn’t drive one kilometre this weekend because my wife loved driving the car and had hijacked the keys.

- Riaan Manser is a pioneering international explorer with multiple world-firsts and has joined the team as the new outdoors editor of News24 Outdoors, driven by Ford.