Jonkershoek Nature Reserve

Jonkershoek Nature Reserve tickets and tours: which one to book

Jonkershoek is a mountain valley that begins ten kilometres, fifteen minutes' drive, from the centre of Stellenbosch, the university and wine town forty-five minutes from Cape Town, and it is where Stellenbosch goes to walk, run, ride and swim; for a visitor in the winelands who has had enough tastings, it is the ideal half-day in the other direction. The reserve is run by CapeNature, the provincial conservation agency, and a modest conservation fee is paid at the gate at the end of the tarred Jonkershoek road, which passes wine estates and a trout hatchery on the way; an annual Wild Card covers it. Beyond the gate a gravel circular drive of about ten kilometres runs up one side of the valley and down the other, passable in an ordinary car with care, and all the trails start from it.

The guided hikes sold in Stellenbosch, with a transfer, a guide who knows the fynbos, and often a picnic with local wine, solve the problem of transport and of choosing a route, and the combinations with electric mountain bikes or a 4×4 ride up the valley spare the legs the gravel road. Independent walkers choose among four main routes. The Tweede Waterval, the second waterfall, is the favourite: six kilometres return, about two hours, gentle, along the Eerste river to a first fall and then up a side kloof to a second, with pools for swimming. The Swartboskloof to Sosyskloof loop is a half-day, the Panorama circuit, seventeen kilometres up to the ridge below the Dwarsberg and down the Kurktrekker, is a strenuous full day, and the Swartboskloof trail, eighteen kilometres, is tougher still. Mountain biking is confined to the plantation tracks outside the reserve proper.

Visiting Jonkershoek Nature Reserve: what you will see

The reserve covers about 9,800 hectares, some 11,000 with the small Assegaaibosch reserve at its entrance, and takes in the upper Jonkershoek valley and the mountains that wall it in on three sides, the Jonkershoek range and the Stellenbosch mountains, part of the Hottentots-Holland mountain catchment, with the Twins, 1,494 metres, and the Ridge Peak above. The valley takes its name from Jan de Jonker, a bachelor settler, one of the free burghers who was granted land here in the 1680s, in the first years of Stellenbosch. It is one of the wettest places in South Africa: the peaks comb the north-westerly winter storms, and the Dwarsberg at the head of the valley records three metres and more of rain a year, so that two important rivers rise here, the Eerste, which runs down through the valley and Stellenbosch, and the Berg, along with the Lourens and the Riviersonderend, and the reserve is first of all a water catchment, the source of much of the Cape's supply.

For the same reason it has been a site of hydrological research since the 1930s, where the effect of pine plantations and of fire on stream flow was first measured. The vegetation is mountain fynbos, the heath-like shrubland of the Cape floral kingdom, the smallest and richest of the world's six plant kingdoms and a World Heritage Site, of which the Boland mountains, including this reserve, form one of the listed clusters: more than 1,100 plant species have been recorded here, proteas, including the king protea, ericas, restios, disas flowering red beside the waterfalls in midsummer, and relict patches of indigenous forest in the kloofs. Fynbos needs fire every fifteen years or so, and the valley burns regularly, most severely in 2009, 2015 and 2021. Leopards of the small Cape mountain form live here and are photographed by camera traps, with baboons, klipspringers, grey rhebok, caracals, honey badgers and porcupines; Verreaux's eagles, Cape sugarbirds, orange-breasted sunbirds and the Cape rockjumper are among the birds.

Jonkershoek Nature Reserve: best time to go, seasons and hours

The reserve is open daily from about 7.30 am to 4 pm in winter and 6 pm in summer, with last entry some hours before closing for the long trails. Spring, from August to November, is the best time, with the fynbos in flower, the waterfalls full and mild temperatures; summer, December to March, is hot, dry and windy, with the pools at their most welcome, red disas in bloom in January and February, high fire danger and occasional closures;

winter, May to August, is cold and very wet, when the rivers can flood and the upper trails close, with snow on the peaks some days. Weather changes quickly on the ridge, so carry a warm layer and water. Sign the register at the gate. Allow a half-day. Stellenbosch's oak-lined streets and wine estates are fifteen minutes away, Franschhoek forty-five minutes, and Cape Town forty-five.