On 14 March 2021, a small group of eight intrepid Capetonian trail guides and mountain hikers will cycle and hike an epic 70km from Cape Point to Table Mountain Cable Station to raise awareness and funds for the SPCA.

Cycling the first 35km from Cape Point to Kalk Bay, then hiking 35km up onto the mountains to pick up the trails leading to Table Mountain and ultimately descending Platteklip to finish at the Cable Station, they expect the journey to take up to 15 hours.

“We are doing this mainly to fundraise for the SPCA, which has been extremely hard hit by the economic fallout of the Covid pandemic,” said organiser and experienced trail guide, Binny Ridgway.

“Another industry that has also been particularly hard hit by the pandemic is tourism. The majority of the Trails4Tails group are adventure tour guides who now find themselves with a lot of free time on their hands, and they want to do something meaningful to help.”

The SPCA has welcomed the initiative, and Belinda Abraham, spokesperson for the Cape of Good Hope SPCA, hopes that it will be a significant fundraiser for the organisation in a difficult period: “There has been a flood of pets being surrendered or abandoned to the streets as their owners can no longer afford to care for them, and the SPCA is the catch net. We are currently experiencing a 24% increase in the number of animals in need of our help. 

“Just one of our recent cases involved a severely injured dog, which we later named “Bali”. 

Suffering from a badly fractured femur to one limb, a deep abrasion that left cartilage exposed on another and several old and new abrasions, Bali’s owner refused our offer of veterinary assistance and then, claimed to not know where she was when our Inspector returned with South African Police Services and a court order to remove her from his care. Her owner was arrested for the obstruction of justice and is also facing charges in respect of contraventions of the Animals Protection Act No.71 of 1962. Fortunately Bali was recovered at 10pm on the night of her “disappearance” and is now recovering at the SPCA where she first had to be treated for Ehrlichia, a tick borne disease that affected the clotting capacity of her blood before her fractured hind leg could be surgically repaired. There is no doubt that Bali was desperately ill and in torturous pain and we couldn’t be more thankful to this tenacious group of trail guides for taking on this gruelling challenge to raise the funds needed to care for many more animals like Bali,”

The Trails4Tails group includes: Binny Ridgway, Sally Petersen, Sue Parker-Smith, Amanda Twyman , James Twyman, Jeremy Schreiner, Bevan-Hope Baillie and Darsha Pershina