Hometown Hikes: Elsie's Peak

This is going to be a picture roll more than anything else.

Elise's Peak is the sliver of mountain between Fish Hoek and Glencairn. It's a easy-going hike and the rewards of some really smashing views are well worth the minor effort it takes to reach the top.

View of Elsie's over Fish Hoek Beach from the road coming out of Kalk Bay.

I did some research to find out who "Elsie" was and why she had a Peak named after her... It turns out it's a bit of a complicated story involving a river, a boat and a series of bad translations which resulted in the namesake we know today. I found a wealth of information about the area on the Glencairn resident association site which has a whole lot of interesting facts about the hydrology, geology and history of the valley.

A stone marks the start of the track.

We started the hike from the Glencairn side where we parked pretty much halfway up the hill and looked down on the valley.

To the right, the handsome little hamlet branches up into the valley.

To the left, Simontown and the dilantant Atlantic beyond.

The path winds up the hillside among large proteas and lichen covered rocks. There are sunbirds and sugarbirds aplenty and, as you climb, the vistas just keep getting getting better.

I don't know nearly enough about fynbos to identify all the species here. But the Leucospermums are prolific and a firm favourite of the sugarbirds.

We weaved back and forth over the spine of Elsie's Peak en-route to the lookout. This offered views down into Fish Hoek as well as towards Cape Point. We did this hike in September, so the scars of the 2016 fires were still present. While the Southern side of the mountain had been largely spared the destruction, the proteas on the opposite slope were not so lucky. Their burnt carcasses stuck out like spiny alien plants on a distant planet.

Weep not for these blackened protrusions... fire is all a part of their germination process :)

The peak itself is a pile of rocks on the ocean end of the mountain that sits about 300m above sea level. There are a couple of paths that wind in and around it which provide different perspectives of what lies below. Just to the left of it is a comms tower with a little brick building that sports the tags of some adventurous graffiti artists. There is little to be said about the lookout point itself that the pictures can't say for themselves. It's a great place to eat a sandwich.

Obviously a great place for profile pic material...

The kicker of this walk was, by far, the diversity of flowers. The magic of springtime was in full splendour with the countless floral residents of Elsie's Peak giving it their all.

This is just a small iota of the amazing array of flowers covering the mountaintop.

Of course, there are plenty of creatures hiding in amongst the cracks and crags. There was a bit of a chilly wind pumping, but some of the local inhabitants had snuck out to grab a few rays of sun.

Colourful critters: Girdled Lizard, Padloper Tortoise, Foam Grasshopper and a Rock Agama <3

After a morning of exploring we stepped off the mountain path to where we had parked our car. Here, we were gifted with a wonderful send off by the two iconic bird species of Elsie's Peak: The Cape Sugarbird and the Orange Breasted Sunbird. Both were hanging on the edges of the gardens that sit on the mountain fringe, and both allowed me to get nice and close for a full frame photo.

Whirring Cape Sugarbird.

The jewel of the Cape skies: the Orange Breasted Sunbird.

If you've got an itch in your boot for a short, easy and edifying hike: look no further. Elsie's Peak is well worth checking out for a day in the sun (and possibly wind). A word has to be said for the stellar efforts of the Glencairn community for their fantastic maintenance of their mountainside. I'll certainly be back again to free my inner flower-child on this treasure of the Cape Peninsula.

Photo Credit: Phillipa Reinders

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