Patiencie Valley
Revisited
A
delightful secluded, shady and little known woodland valley trail
following the Patiencie stream down (or up!) the Smitswinkel
Valley. This cache replaces the Patiencie Valley cache GC1WAX5
which went missing and was subsequently
archived.
At its lower end, the valley
trail joins the main access trail to Smitswinkel Bay coming down
from the M4 Main Road high above which then continues on down to
the beach and the Smitswinkel Bay Cache GC1M0GK under the cliffs
just beyond.
According to Peter Slingsby, local
cartographer extraordinaire (see www.themaps.co.za), Smitswinkel
was originally called Patiencie after its tiny stream because
mariners seeking to fill their water casks here had to exercise
great patience with the slow trickle of water. Given the amount of
water flowing at this time of year (July) they would not need to be
quite so patient! The origin of Smitswinkel (meaning smithy) dating
from at least 1744 is as yet
unknown.
To
reach the cache:
Park
near the entrance to the Smitswinkel Bay Forestry Station at
S34 15.490 E18
27.537. Cross the road and walk down to the trail
head at S34 15.590 E18
27.691 near the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve
fence corner.
Descend the few metres from the road
to the trail and head down into the wooded valley along the left
bank of the Patiencie stream to the cache location. Here at a small
clearing you will need to hop over the stream to reach the cache, a
small pharmaceutical container hidden near the base of a small
tree.
Note:
Coordinate accuracy here was only 5-6m accuracy presumably due to
the trees
A
little further down the trail, pass through the (previously
strangely named - and labelled!) Ding Head Tree (as of 29-10-10
this sign had disappeared) - see
photo.
If
you continue down the woodland trail, at S34 15.808 E18 27.944 it
joins the main trail coming down to the Bay from the road. Here you
have three choices:
1)
return the way you came
2)
make a circular walk for a 2-cache mission - turn left and ascend
the zig-zag path to the road, passing the Smitswinkel Shufti cache
GC2HHEZ en route. On reaching the top, you will
then need to walk up the road (taking care of traffic!) to return
to your starting point
3)
make a detour +/- circular walk for a 2 or 3-cache mission - follow
the path down to and along the beach and on to the nearby
Smitswinkel Bay cache
GC1M0GK at the base of the cliffs. You then have
choice 2) on the way back!
Of
course the cache can also be done as a circular walk in the reverse
direction starting from the parking spot for the Smitswinkel Shufti
cache.