Feedback Saturday 20th August: King's Blockhouse to Skeleton Gorge and Back

Starting out

Sunrise over the City

Muizenberg Peak in the distance

"This is why we get up early on a Saturday morning when we are not feeling too good" Gaeleen

Fortunately not for one of us!

Brief Feedback Sat 20 august: Contour Path:
Block house to Skeleton Gorge and back

Altogether 38 of us RVd at the appointed time and place behind Rhodes Memorial, which it would seem is an unknown landmark to one of our runners who frantically called “where is it?” to Gaeleen as we drove there.  This was the largest turn-out we have had and included 12 newbies.

It was a truly beautiful spring morning as Veronica, one of our trusty navigators, led the way up to the intersection with the contour path close under King’s Blockhouse.  My usually fairly deserted “guards-van” became a place of refuge for a few who either were suffering from unknown bugs or had over-estimated their fitness.  Anyway we chugged steadily along the trail high above UCT and Newlands with outstanding views across the Cape Flats. 

At the junction at Newlands ravine we found Kerry, Bridget and Craig trying to identify two lost dogs. Bridget managed to get hold of the owner who said leave them as they were with his wife who was running in the area.  Having confirmed that she was now aware that she had lost her dogs we moved on. For those of you, who volunteered to do the second leg of the Table Mountain Challenge next month - because it’s flat, think again!  It definitely is not.

Eventually we reached Skeleton Gorge, having had the brakes constantly applied by one very slow newbie, only to find that things had gone pear-shaped as our leading group had given up waiting for us and lacking the steadying influence of a designated navigator/leader simply scattered! [Veronica had to turn back earlier]  From brief snippets gleaned, it seems the front group split into two or three smaller groups and found their own way back; some by eventually retracing our outward route, some via a version of the 2 Oceans route through Newlands forest while others?  Anyway as best we could tell, all got back.  But lesson learnt.

Fortunately for us our slowbie’s sister - a more experienced trail runner, was accompanying her so we decided to leave slowbie at Newlands Forest Station from where she could be fetched by her sister later.

Our sweep group returned via the helicopter pad and into Groote Schuur Estate and up to Rhodes-Mem. 

Altogether 14.3 Kms and we took just on 3hrs.