Summer hiking backpack essentials
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When beaches were closed for a while, South Africans were also dealing with a curfew and a complete shutdown of social interaction due to the pandemic.
Thankfully, the rainbow nation is resilient, and many people have turned to outdoor spaces to gain some much-needed balance and perspective.
People across the country are visiting their local nature spots for outdoor picnics and active endeavours.
A quick drive past the Melville Koppies in Joburg or Newlands Forest in Cape Town, shows that people are experiencing the best that nature has to offer. Monica Ebert from wool athleisure brand Core Merino offers some advice for the amateur hikers and adventurers seeking freedom in the outdoors.
Covered in sandy, nutrient-starved soils, scorched by fire, and pummelled by the prevailing gale-force southeaster in summer, the Cape Floral Kingdom has persisted as a land of extreme paradoxes for millenniums.
Given the harsh conditions that assail life here, this world seems to have every reason not to be a botanical number cruncher’s wet dream: the untrained eye may hardly conceive that it gives refuge to nearly 20% of Africa’s flora on less than 0.5% of the continent’s surface. It seems implausible that some 9 000 plant species should thrive in these coastal extremities, 70% of which live nowhere else on Earth.