As we live near Silvermine we’ve hiked the Dam and Waterfall areas as well as Elephant’s Eye Cave and Noordhoek Ridge fairly often, so I chose the Echo Valley hike starting from Boyes Drive for a change.

Raph has done this hike a number of times in order to go caving but I don’t ‘do’ small spaces so I’d not had the pleasure of enjoying this hike before. There are 67 sandstone caves in the area, including Aladdin, Tartarus, Robin Hood, Spookgrot, Musical Drops, Devil’s Pit and Oread Hall. It is wise to explore these caves with someone who knows them well. But for those of you who, like me, prefer to stay above the ground the Echo Valley hike is a wonderful way to spend 3.5 hours in the beautiful mountains.

Raph in Echo Valley

We parked on Boyes Drive above Kalk Bay at the start of the hike (there is some parking available alongside the road near the clearly sign-boarded start) and headed up the stone stairs which rose steeply from the road for quite a few minutes. In fact the whole ‘up’ part of the hike is quite a pull uphill but most of the path is shaded by either shrubs or the rock wall of the mountain rising on the right which allows the echoes for which the area is named to bounce around. Lots of fun was had at a few brief stops to drink energade as we thought up various things to shout in order to enjoy the boomerang sound of our own voices returning to us.

Echo Valley Forest

Then we got to the Echo Forest Valley, a gorgeous Milkwood forest with a wooden walkway right through, between, around and under the twisted branches of these magnificent trees. Right in the centre a large wooden picnic table has been erected in the green, restful shade. Alas our plan to enjoy our snacks at this table had to be shelved as a large youth group had taken over the whole area so we continued onward and upward to the Amphitheatre – a small area surrounded by rocks from which the many tunnels and caves lead off. Shortly before arriving at the Amphitheatre we stopped to look around and realised we could see the whole Peninsula – what an amazing view! Sadly my photo from that spot didn’t come out.

Old Man's Beard growing on a tree

We were actually looking for the entrance to one of the caves Raph had previously explored as he wanted me to just ‘have a look’ but we took the wrong track and ended up discovering an alternative route down via another even more beautiful Milkwood grove – the Spes Bona Forest. Another wooden walkway led through this magical Narnian scenery with the trees casting an emerald gloom over everything, and massive moss covered rocks adding more texture to the surroundings. We also spotted unusual bright red flowers growing along the forest floor, adding splashes of colour, which we were later told by an avid hiker were the Haemanthus Sanguineus aka the Common Paintbrush.

Joy-Anne in the Forest

Once we were out of the trees it wasn’t long before we were able to enjoy wonderful  views of False Bay. Once we made it down to Boyes drive we had a 15 minute walk back to our car but we were really glad to have discovered the circular route as it’s always more interesting than a there-and-back on the same track hike.

View of Muizenberg and beyond

I can really recommend this hike, although steep in parts, as a fairly simple 5.2 km walk for moderately fit families, especially when the sun is shining and you’re after a hike with plenty of cool shade along the way.

Note: If you are able to arrange two cars, you can also park one at Boyes then drive around to Silvermine on Ou Kaaps and park there, and walk in one direction all the way.

False Bay Views