© Rudolf P du Toit Water streams along the way.

Panorama Hiking Trail, Jonkershoek Nature Reserve, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Location : Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa
Distance : hiked 12km, full trail is 17.1km
Duration : 5 hours (1 day)
Difficulty : moderate-strenuous
Present : Deneille Jacobs, Rudolf du Toit

My review of the Panorama trail is fairly short. My camera's batteries went dead after I took just three pictures. The descent is also down Kurktrekker, which is more properly reviewed in the Swartboskloof Trail. We also did the Panorama trail only partially.

After purchasing a permit at the office gate (R20 per person in 2007) and signing in, you either have the option to walk or to drive the gravel road to the parking area where the trail starts. The gravel road follows a circular route for appproximately 10km. We drove the 5km to the parking area. The road was in good condition (no 4WD vehicle required).

We started the hike at 08:45. © Rudolf P du Toit Water streams along the way. The initial 4km is fairly steep uphill. We tried to get onto the contour path as quickly as we could (we were training for Kilimanjaro). We reached the contour path at around 10:30. The trail was not nearly as overgrown as the Swartboskloof trail on the other side of the mountain. We passed some pretty streams along the way up.

At some point near "Bergriviernek" the path splits. You can either continue along the contour path or follow a one-way path approximately 2km. Since that path was not circular, we decided to continue along the contour path. This shortened our hike by about 4km. We had some incoming clouds and at some stage it was actually quite cold.








We had lunch at the start of the descent down Kurktrekker at about 12:00. © Rudolf P du Toit The view from the contour path. The Kurktrekker descent is about 2.6km, and not very pleasant. There are some more pictures in the Swartboskloof trail. We finished the trail at about 14:30.

The Panorama trail is also nice to do, but I can not comment on the whole trail as we did not hike about 4km of it. Personally I enjoyed the Swartboskloof trail more.