A southern suburbs all-women hiking group is still on the trail 30 years on, and members marked the anniversary with lunch at a Constantia Nek restaurant.
The club was founded in 1990 by Helga Hill – an appropriate enough name for a woman whose initiative has seen hikers traverse pretty much every hill and dale across the Cape Peninsula, and several further afield.
They’ve done Silvermine, Noordhoek Peak, Cecilia Waterfall, Constantia Nek on the contour path to Kirstenbosch, Elsies Peak, Echo Valley, Cape Point and more.
The club started from humble beginnings, to raise funds for Bergvliet and Wynberg Boys high schools, and now has two hiking groups that meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Several of the original hikers are still with the club and have hit the trail weekly for the past 30 years, come rain or shine.
They have hiked many trails in and around South Africa, including several in the Drakensberg. Some of the hikers have notched up treks in distant lands including Patagonia, Tour du Mont Blanc, Everest base camp, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Scottish Highlands and Annapurna in the Himalayas.
For 19 years the group has been under the leadership of Sue Dalrymple and Yvonne Dixon.
Currently the membership of both groups is 45.
“Our membership includes several swallows from New York and England. The swallows are women who live abroad and come to live in South Africa for several months, then they go back to their home country. While they are here in Cape Town they hike with our groups,” says Yvonne.
She says the group has a lot of history and the members have shared the good, bad and the sad over the years – seen children through school, matric dances and exams, university, engagements, weddings, babies and sadly some divorces.
“Like the sisterhood, the leaders continue to work at keeping the groups going,” says Yvonne.
For more information on the hiking group contact Sue Dalrymple at 082 873 8209 or Yvonne Dixon at 082 797 0392.
