A newly-formed adventure hiking club, Caregiver Hiking Club, is giving young people from communities around the EWT’s Medike Nature Reserve a reason to see the Soutpansberg mountain differently – not as a boundary, but as an opportunity.

The hiking club was formed after a group of local Cricket South Africa beneficiaries visited Medike for an environmental capacity building programme earlier this year.

Twenty-three young people gathered at Medike for a guided hike to the waterfall and the reserve’s ancient San rock paintings, followed by a picnic lunch at Marula Camp.

Interpretive guides, together with four novice local guides, lead two groups of young people on the hiking trails sharing the area’s cultural heritage and perspectives on conservation, with the aim of inspiring visitors about the importance of the Soutpansberg’s catchment area, not only to the mountain, but to every household downstream that depends on its water.

For many, it was their first visit to a nature reserve of any kind, and it showed. What they experienced on the mountain stayed with them.

One guided hike was never going to be the end of the story. Within weeks of the adventure hiking club’s first outing at Medike, members had formed their own WhatsApp group, and the pace of what followed has surprised even us. The group did not wait for the EWT to organise the next trip. Members began sharing routes, photos, and stories about their own adventures, and using the group to advertise upcoming hikes to friends and neighbours who had not yet come along. That peer-to-peer momentum has done more to grow interest in a few weeks than a formal marketing campaign.

The next step is more ambitious. We are working with the club toward developing a multi-day trail experience, where hikers will carry their own pack for up to three days as they move deeper into the mountain before reaching the next rest point. The club has already purchased three tents for camping during the three-day backpacking hike at Medike nature reserve. Our ambition reaches well beyond the trail itself. Rather than treating tourism as something only the EWT can run, we want local eco-tourism entrepreneurs to grow across the whole value chain – from tour operators and cultural tours to craft shops, local adventure guides and other heritage-based small businesses.

This initiative helps to alleviate poverty and reduce human-wildlife conflict. Together, this partnership strengthens conservation, creates employment, and ensures that future generations will value and protect their natural and cultural heritage.

What began as a single hike has become a repeatable, bookable, income generating experience. Guided walking is becoming something closer to a movement; one where young people from the surrounding villages see themselves not as visitors to the Soutpansberg, but as its owners and custodians.