The main purpose of a Sole Mates is to enjoy yourself, get out into nature and discover the most amazing surroundings right at our doorstep week after week. In order to enjoy yourself, you must be able to go at your own comfortable pace.

While most of us are not at an extreme fitness level, we do recommend an intermediate level of fitness. This means you should be able to hike 10km with ease and at a steady pace both up and down steep grades. A classic local example would be the 10km trail at Groenkloof Nature Reserve.

Each hike is broken into 2 groups – the Rabbits and the Tortoises. The Rabbits tend to take on a more challenging pace and will stop less to rest. The Tortoises tend to take their time, take pictures, and stop more often to take in the views but still keep a steady pace. For safety reasons, we encourage all hikers to keep to one of these two groups.

Those that wish to go faster than the Rabbits (Cheetahs) or slower than the Tortoises (Snails) are happy to sign up and join us at the venue. If you know this at the start of the hike, please inform the organisers but don’t expect the group to keep up or wait for you.
If you sense during the hike that you need to break away from the groups, please inform another hiker so that we are aware of your separation from the official groups. If possible, also post this to the hike specific WhatsApp group.
Cheetahs and Snails must take responsibility for themselves and cannot expect the group to accommodate them. When you have completed the hike, please post your status to the WhatsApp group.

If you are unsure of your fitness level, we recommend you first join and easy or moderate hike. Each of our hikes has a Hike Difficulty stated in the Hike Information section of the post.