November 9, 2011
By Richard McCormack

Now that summer is in the air again perhaps it’s time to start experiencing the great outdoors in “Big Sky” country. There is no better way to enjoy and experience the wild places of Africa than putting some hiking boots on and placing one foot in front of the other, away from the mad scramble, noise and pollution of the cities.

Most smartphones are GPS enabled and these can be used in conjunction with downloaded apps to make navigating the hiking trail of choice as simple as possible. Downloadable map tools and trail guides also ensure you never get lost and enable enthusiasts to also share their trail experiences with friends and family.

SA has a massive variety of the most beautifully scenic hiking trails in the world, whether you enjoy walking by the ocean, through mountains, forests, savannah or desert, SA has it all.

One of the most popular hikes in the country is the Otter Trail, along the Tsitsikamma coast. It is a microscosm of all kinds of terrain including lush forests, rugged shorelines, mountain streams and waterfalls making this the experience of a lifetime. It’s undoubtedly strenuous, with lots of ups and downs, so hikers need to be moderately fit, but the distances aren’t too great- around 12 km a day for a total of five days.

The popularity of this trail means it is not uncommon for hikers to book a year in advance but it is definitely worth the wait. Of course, the most important aspect of a hiking trail is that you don’t constantly bump into other people. And the only way to ensure that is to limit numbers, so that means you usually have to book in advance.

The Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape offers similar trails but with dramatically different scenery including miles of deserted beaches, wave-lashed rocks and occasional tropical forest complete with foraging monkeys.

Nature purists can tackle the Wild Coast as rough as they like. There are many kilometers of unspoiled hiking trail traversing high mountains, deserts and forests, where the accommodation is the usual hiking hut, and the cuisine whatever you decide to carry in your backpack.

For an even wilder experience, you can hike for days in the Cedarberg, near Cape Town, or the Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal, without seeing a hut or a route marker. These are designated wilderness areas, and you simply take your GPS mobile and a permit and set off, sleeping under the stars or in convenient caves. There are many others, some of which are on private land. You can get a reasonable idea of what’s available from the Footprint Hiking Club at http://www.southafrica.info/travel/adventure/hiking.htm

Nokia’s Ovi store has a range of useful mobile GPS hiking applications. FreeTrack is a nifty GPL app to do GPS tracking during your hikes, treks, bicycle, and other sports. You can also upload maps, calibrate them, save tracks and reload them for later reuse.

Download FreeTrack from Nokia Ovi Store

Trimble Outdoors LE turns your phone into a GPS navigator and trip collector for your outdoor adventures. Mark waypoints and record tracks of your travels. Use the digital compass and GPS features to navigate while hiking, backpacking, fishing, hunting, or on other outdoor adventures.

You can also wirelessly send GPS trips to trimbleoutdoors.com for instant access to free web-based map tools and go to trimbleoutdoors.com and share trips with friends.

Download Trimble Outdoors LE from Nokia Ovi Store

The untouched wild trails of South Africa are waiting for you this summer.