The Peninsula Ultra Fun Run, known for short as Puffer, is a no-frills ultra-trail which has been organised annually in Cape Town, South Africa since 1995, by the Fish Hoek Athletics Club. There is no prize money and no major media coverage. Entries are limited, and participants are expected to be independent, self-sufficient and environmentally aware.
The total distance is about 80 km, which is more or less the shortest possible route from Cape Point to the Waterfront. The route runs from Cape Point to Red Hill Pass, through the Simon's Town Water Catchment Area to Black Hill, via Ou Kaapse Weg across Fish Hoek Valley to Silvermine Nature Reserve, through Tokai Forest Plantation and the Vlakkenberg footpath to Constantia Nek, over Table Mountain to the summit at Maclear's Beacon (1,086 metres above sea level), then down Platteklip Gorge to Kloofnek, via Signal Hill to the V&A Waterfront.
Now, a number of us have been putting our names down on the application list for years, to no avail, so the amazing organisational abilities of the Tyrone Harriers was brought in to break the stalemate. Bugger it, if we can’t get on the official list, we will organise our own version of it! A date was set for the 17th of March, which we hoped would give us the best of the Cape weather, and fit in amongst all of the Comrades and Iron Man training that all the hard-core freaks had committed to. A we set upon a new name for our interpretation of the event: “The Bluffer”..
When the Tyrone Harriers Committee gets stuck in to something, what results is a not unlike a well-co-ordinated military campaign. All logistical arrangements were planned and executed, and when we all gathered at the airport on Friday afternoon, there was a relaxed but excited buzz in our little group. We piled on to the plane with our Vida Café coffees, and we were off.
We were met at the airport but the designated shuttle driver Clint, (more on this character later), and there was only one delay on the way to the B&B when poor old Paul had to alight from the vehicle and stand on the side of the road to deliver his weekly call to the Money Show on 702… He was too scared to do it from the safer confines of the bus, as he could not be sure that one of us might try to get involved in some un-official capacity… But soon we were off once more, we had found the B&B, thrown our stuff in our rooms, and were able to walk off down the road to a nearby restaurant for some pre-race dinner.
Dinner turned into a bit of a fiasco… The restaurant was clearly stretched by trying to deal with the 17 or 18 of us all at once… Our food came in dribs and drabs, and some of us had eaten and were ready to go before others had received theirs. It appears the effects of the economic crisis in Greece have really started to impact us here in South Africa too, as they ran out of halloumi cheese, (but that didn’t stop them serving “halloumi salads” though)! Poor Sheila ended up eating her dinner in about 30 seconds, whilst we stood around, took photos and videos, and clapped!
On the way back from the dinner on Friday night, we had an amazing experience. We saw a man-hole cover on a man-hole!
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Malcolm pays his respects… |
Malcolm reverently knelt down to touch this rare and hallowed object, and we all said a few words about how lucky Cape Townians were to have Helen Zille there at the helm. There was some talk about removing it, and bringing it back home as a souvenir… But we resisted, determined to be satisfied with this more sustainable “touch and release” policy…
Saturday morning saw us having an early start. We all piled into Clint’s F1 Racing Bus, and he set off, determined to reward us all with another scintillating display of his death defying driving, and his apparent affliction with bouts of crippling colour blindness, which seem to attack periodically at traffic lights.
We emerged unscathed from the bus with some gratitude at Cape Point, just in time it seemed, before he set off in a cloud of dust to some other pressing engagement. It was pretty novel to be the only group in the car park… Last time I was there I had to fight my way through the Japanese tourists, not unlike Admiral Nimitz did at Okinawa back in ’45… Not even the baboons were up to greet us!
We made our way up to the a long line of steps to the lighthouse, and gathered for that traditional pre-race picture… Can you believe it… An Asian gent appeared, (all alone), out of thin air! Good timing, because he was able to be the official race photographer, and to capture the pic of us all below:
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Yes. Andre ran the whole way in his Sunday bests… | ||
I am not sure why we were standing on the left, and crouching on the right…???Gavin obviously feels he is much taller than he actually is… But anyway, There was a general whooping and hoopla, we gave the lighthouse a slap, and set off down the stairs again, back through the car park, and on our long and winding way back towards Cape Town.
The weather was as perfect as we could have hoped for… Cool, with a light cloud cover, the gentlest of breezes… The rain over the past day or two had left the air squeaky clean, and had put a shine on the fynbos. We all fell into our own comfortable pace in little groups, soaking up the views, and the sunrise over False Bay to our right. | ||
We stopped at one of the amazing viewpoints for our first munchies just before exiting the park, wolfing down some nuts, Gu or biltong. We took in the last of the sunrise over the bay, and headed out through the gates, down the long access road to the main Redhill Road, back up and over the hills to the point over-looking Simon’s Town.
Mid-morning, we took a shortcut through an “informal settlement” at the top of the ridge, and I was heartened to see the number of satellite dishes that had been nailed to trees, or strapped to telephone poles… It appears that even those living far below the poverty datum line find that the drivel served up on state TV far from appealing. Nearly every resident seems to be able to find the means to scrape together the pennies to pay for DStv every month. This warmed the cockles of my heart, as it means my employers are well entrenched on this continent…
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We cut off the road again at this point, and were fortunate to be met by Malcolm’s mother and father in law, Peta and Chris Mason, who had turned out in their car, and met us at a picnic spot with a basket of fresh egg-and-mayo sarmies, some bottles of water, and a few other treats. 5 minutes later, all the bottles were empty, the baskets contained only crumbs, and the hoard of scavengers moved on again, over a hill, and down across some open trails towards Sun Valley.
After 28km on any run, it always starts to get quieter… Either we have told all our clever stories, or we start concentrating more on putting one foot in front of the other, than impressing our friends with our stunning wit and alacrity…. The route from here on in got hotter, and tougher. We stopped in at a garage in Sun Valley to fill our water tanks, before setting off for the real running of the day, which involved a whole bunch of climbing up Ou Kaapse Weg.
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Malcolm shows us how it’s done… |
The roads were busy with shoppers making their way to “church” in the malls, so where we could, we kept on the trails, and paused periodically to look back at our impressive progress in conquering the meters of climb up into the hills overlooking Noordhoek, and eventually Constantia.
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A sign along the way. Three is a crowd… Four is … |
So sometime around 14h00, the ragged band of runners arrived at the car park at Silvermine Dam, just over 46km from where we had started that morning. This is where we had arranged to meet our racing driver Clint, so he could further raise our adrenal levels with a drive back to the B&B for a wash and brush up. A few of the hard-core guys were determined to run on further, over the top of the ridge, and down into Constantia, but I am pleased to say that the most of us did not feel compelled. Many blamed this lack of willingness on the critical shortage of halloumi cheese in their salads the night before… I rather fell prey to the lure of the pool, the shower, a pot of tea, and some rather fine home-made muffins back home. This, along with an extra hour on the cool cotton sheets of my bed, before spending the rest of the afternoon lying about with a beer in hand, watching the Sharks beat the hell out of the Red’s in those pathetic excuses for rugby jerseys…
Dinner on day two was a great improvement, at least from the aspect of the food we were served, but I fear once more we made no friends with the regulars… Let me give you this bit of advice: If you ever walk into a restaurant, and you see a table for 15 – 20 people with a reserved sign on it - Turn around immediately, and beat a hasty retreat. Cut your losses whilst you can – especially if you have your octogenarian mother with you! There is a high probability a loud group of runners (or other sport-tourist types), are about to descend on that space, and destroy your quaint dinner… And if they are already sitting at the table, ask if there are any St Mary’s girls there? If there are, run like hell! ;)
Sunday morning, more of the same... Breakfast, and away in the F1 Ferrari Bus (with the sickening knock and wobble on the back left wheel), for some more running in the hills… We started to run as the sun rose. No slow warm up today though. The climbing started immediately, and was pretty un-relentless until we arrived at Maclear’s beacon at about 1,100m above sea level, an hour or two later. Once again, the weather was perfect, with nothing more than a gentle breeze, and visibility for miles and miles. I don’t know if us Joburg types really know quite how lucky we were…
We stopped at various look out spots to soak it all up, and had a team-photo opportunity “at the top”.
Now was the time for the serious downhill stuff. We detoured from the real Puffer route to take in a few of the extra sights, like the view down over Camps Bay. |
Yes… Those are houses down there… Expensive ones too! |
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Andre looking out over Cape Town |
But the sight of the tourists pouring out of the cable car station chased us away pretty soon, and we beat a hasty retreat back down the steps, to the entrance of Platteklip Gorge, where we would do the most of the dropping. This little section did a pretty good job of turning our quads to jelly, and demanded lots of attention, as one misplaced footing would see you on your face, and making a fool of yourself (as Frank so willingly demonstrated, much to the amusement of his buddies), in front of the some of the many pretty little German Fraulein that seemed to adorn the mountain that morning… J
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Emma descending Platteklip, showing us it’s possible to keep smiling even when your legs aren’t |
At the bottom, we traversed along the contour lines, back down to the lower cable car station, where we waited for the rest of the team, and regrouped for the final push down to where the beer was waiting for us.
From the top of Table Mountain, Lions Head, and the section of the saddle out towards Signal Hill looks pretty flat… But it’s all about your perspective, because once you get down there, you realise it wasn’t all going to be downhill running…
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Signal Hill wasn’t as flat as it looked from the cable car station (at the peak on top left) |
Anyway. This “race” had to end sometime. We were all starting to behave like “hotel pony’s”… You know the type that only have one speed when they are turned around and heading for home… We navigated our way through the confusing streets at the base of Signal Hill, and arrived at Ferryman’s just after mid-day, which is an awfully fashionable time to drink beer… And destroy another peaceful mealtime for yet another crowd of perfectly innocent punters.
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Recovery meal of Champions… The Doctor swears by a hard boiled egg (or two) and a pint of milk stout. Who was going to be the lucky one to sit next to us for two hours on the flight home tonight? |
I managed to get down three pints of Bosun’s Bitter, along with a 300gr steak egg and chips, (bringing my daily egg count for the day up to 5, an possibly positioning me to be able to fly myself back to Joburg later).
After lunch, it was back to the B&B, where we were met with bad news of a power failure. So un-phased, the guys descended on the pool, armed with bars of soap and shampoo, to get the worst of the muck and sweat off us before the flight home, so the ladies could share what was left of the hot water in the geysers. We stuffed our sweaty kit into our bags, and set off to the airport. I said a silent prayer that the sniffer dogs would not be on duty at the airport tonight, as I was sure that if they were set free amongst our bags tonight, they would have to be sent for re-calibration the next day!
We checked in, and grabbed a Vida Café fix to try and keep us all awake. But the exertion and fun of the past two days wore heavily on us. This, along with the “downer” that comes to visit at the end of a long anticipated adventure… It was all too much for many of us… Lu may as well have saved the money on the neck brace for all the good it did her on the plane.
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No amount of Vida was going to keep this girl awake… |
But as I sat on the plane on the way home that evening, mulling over what had been an amazing weekend, what struck me hardest was just how lucky we were to be able to do this kind of thing… And it occurred to me that I must never take this “for granted”… I sat and pondered on the complexities of all our lives, and how much sacrifice had been made by so many of us, just to pull this off.
There was poor Wynne Kossuth, who had had to pull out after day 1, and fly back to Joburg on Saturday evening, (at short notice), so she could be at mediation for a demanding client on Sunday morning.
There was Sheila who also pulled out of day 2, to save her legs for Two Oceans in a few weeks, but more importantly to take her Mum, (who lives in Cape Town), out for lunch.
Joni, who’s Dad was in the final stages of his battle with cancer at his home in Simon’s Town… Joni ran with us each day, but rushed off immediately after each leg, so she could spend time with him, and with her sister, who was also at his side. He held on bravely, but passed away on Monday, immediately after our run.
Rory Steyn, who had an accident and fell whilst training just the weekend before the event, and broke his collar bone… This meant he couldn’t run, but he came down to Cape Town anyway, and hiked up Skeleton Gorge on Sunday morning with a pack of munchies, so he could share them with us at Breakfast Rock…
These are some of our stories… I am sure there were more, but I think I have made my point.
We live in a frenetic world, where it seems we have to fight tooth and nail to make these things happen. To put in the training so you can even turn up, to make the plans. To create the time and the space, that a group of friends can get out and do something like this. This is what builds the connection, and creates friendships that can last a lifetime….
So, form “the Northern Chapter”, to our friends and comrades (old and new) of the Tyrone Harriers, a big, big thank you. Thanks for the amazing organisation and planning, and making it all flow so smoothly. And thanks for including us. If I am fortunate to get asked to join again, and if I keep training like hell, well, I look forward to doing it all again soon!
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