Hoogekraal Farm Walking and Running Trail.

The joys of exploring locally.

Yesterday we took our free puppy Kayla to the recently opened walking and trail-running trail at Hoogekraal Farm near Durbanville. It’s a 5.6 km loop with 180 meters of climbing and it is all on jeep track and a lot of custom-built single track. The walking trails are well separated from the established mountain bike trails except for a 200 meter section of jeep track at the very top where the cyclists are no threat to woofie as they will be slowly recovering from their 30 minute climb. (Most mountain bikers are good folks and will probably want to give your doggo food and water anyway)

We were silly enough to allow her off-leash next to the cow watering pond to see her reaction. She had never seen water like this before and we assumed she would be wary and stay on the edge. Silly us. She launched herself like an Exocet missile straight for the middle of the thing. Our suspicions were proven correct, she’s 100% a water baby. A smelly and very crusty water baby by the end of the walk.

You can visit every day but can only take your floofs there at the weekend as its a working farm, and during the week there are too many cows in the fields for it to be safe for them.

Take water and a bowl for the doggos because obviously there isn’t any available on the trail. Also be aware that this is outside in Cape Town and there are snakes in summer. Other than her swim and a short photo op, our girl was on leash all the time to keep her safe.

Cost of entry is R40 per person which isn’t bad for a very safe 90-minute activity (single track isn’t cheap to build), but for everyday use, it would be good to see them introduce an annual permit and even a pensioners discount for the older folk with less cash.

Visit the farms website here.

Hoogekraal Farm