We went on a day hike at this place just outside Parys. It is on the farm Rietpoort, thus the hike is called Rietpoort hike.
One can do the hike in many fashions, there is a criss cross over a number of trails. We decided to keep it simple and just follow the perimeter of the farm. That way our hike was 3.5 km, not much of a hike, but it was enough to keep us occupied for a few hours. Especially the way we tackled it with frequent talk stops and two lunch stops, each time eating half our sandwiches.
Mostly, the trail runs through bushy country. A very pleasant part is along the dam and the vlei. The dam unfortunately didn't invite for a swim, not like it was in December 2013, picture on the right.
A fairly taxing stretch was up to the top of the mountain, from which we had a lovely view over to Parys and Vredefort. Altitude difference from bottom to top was 100 meter.
A few lumps of granite near the bottom of the hike just had to be climbed, see Frans on top. It was just before that, coming down, that Lydia had a bad fall and scraped her knee. Fortunately it wasn't serious.
The farmer made the start- and finishing point of the hike very interesting with old tools and machinery placed around for us technically minded hikers to study and to figure out what their function was and how they worked. And something new for us that had done the hike before, a series of sculptures of animals like this leopard behind the bush.