Sometimes, when walking, you encounter a locked gate. Your attitude towards the locked gate depends on how long you’ve been walking and how tired you are. Defeat is not an option! Over, under, around…. moving forward is the goal.

Today’s walk, part of the Cape Camino route, was challenging at the end. Emotionally rather than physically. Imagine being within site of your destination, but there is a locked gate and high fence between you and The End. Imagine that you have walked 9km, and the alternative road was some 4km behind you.

The day started with a new backpack. We noticed on the last walk that my potbelly pig had eaten a hole in my backpack, so my husband went shopping! And here it is:

We started at Misty Cliffs and were heading to the Slangkop Lighthouse, where we had parked the second car. We had started a little later than usual (my fault) and the sun was up and strong. Even though it was relatively flat, it was a tiring walk.

We got to the Soetwater turnoff, and turned down as per the instructions. The downhill was long, and tough for those with back issues. We had great fun practicing “soft knees” (and walking like ducks)!

   

The Soetwater area is lovely – well worth a visit either for a picnic, or to camp there.

And then……….

We arrived at a locked gate. Strangely, there is no photo of the locked gate. The three of us stared at it for a full minute before anyone said anything out loud. We could see the car on the other side. The fence was high, and had spikes. No way we were going to go over. We looked to the left, we looked to the right, and there was no obvious way round, unless we wanted to walk 4km back (most of it uphill) to the Soetwater turnoff.

M & F shut down, you could see it. But I just turned around and started walking. I remembered passing a security booth where the campsite started and wanted to ask security. I just strod off and left two depressed walkers in my wake!

And lo and behold, the lovely security lady at the campsite showed us a way through, as there was a gap in the fence. Everyone cheered up immediately. Sadly no photo of the lovely lady, as we were still all too shell-shocked at the thought of 4km back, even though there was now a second option.

You can see our little detour on the map.

    SO CLOSE!

You may remember, if you’ve read all the posts, how happy the three of us were to get back to our car on the first walk (after the key incident) and I think this is the happiest we have been to reach the car since then!