Duiker Island Cleanup
The Duiker Island cleanup and guided hike was so much fun, not only did we clean up the trail and coastline we learnt so much about the history of Hout Bay and specifically about Hangberg.
Love our trails and Cape Union Mart have partnered up to host a series of cleanups but this cleanup was different, we included a local guide Santonio Jonker, also known as Toni who started a guiding company CapeTown Hilltop Adventures to showcase over 20 hikes in the Hout Bay area.
The morning started with a coffee from Vida E while all the volunteers met at the Hout Bay Harbour Market. I introduced our guide Toni who happens to be a great story teller and knowledgeable guide.
The hike starts at the harbour and makes its way through the Hangberg community where Toni takes you through the history from cutting down the forest of trees in the area to build the castle to the start of the fishing industry and how apartheid displaced parts of the community and how they have grown, overcome challenges and survived as a community.
It is really eye opening, giving me a great understanding and more empathy.
The hike is short and easy to the saddle where we were spoiled with views of Hout Bay behind us and the rocky coastline and endless ocean in front of us.
It didn’t take long to fill 10 bags of litter, in fact we could have filled 20 bags quite easily. At first glance the coast looks clean until you start picking up litter and all of a sudden it’s all you can see from fishing line and rope to plastic. The craziest thing was the amount of litter from other countries like China, I can’t help but wonder if the ocean currents carry the litter all the way around the world or if this litter is washing up on our shores as the government continue to sell fishing rights to other countries while they forget to support local fishing communities.
Toni, our guide, called on some of his fishing friends from the community to give us a hand carrying the full bags of litter back over the hill to the harbour.
But it wasn’t all work, we took time out, explored Duiker Island and took in the views, we watched hundreds of seals tanning on the rocks while a group of people played in the water on a seal diving tour.
The views are breathtaking, it is a bucket list short hike.
A massive thanks to all the volunteers who joined us, new friendships were made, a big thanks to our guide Toni, and thank you to Cape Union Mart for getting behind these regular cleanups and lastly to Vida E for our yummy coffees.
Follow Love our trails on social media for the next cleanup.
