Calling all visitors to Cape Town... Fancy walking in the foothills of the Himalayas or Andes for a paltry 25 Rand - the price of a sandwich? You can leave home at a not too disagreeably early hour and be back home in time for tea.
Of course I'm joking, but a day's hike in the extraordinary Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve - an hour and a bit outside Cape Town - comes pretty close to delivering such a massive mountain hiking experience: huge, straining peaks and tumbling river valleys against a backdrop of silvery blue sky.
And then there's the plants.
Kogelberg is at the heart of the Cape Floral Kingdom, a unique sliver of vegetation restricted to South Africa's Cape region.
Compared to other global plant powerhouses - the Holarctic Kingdom covers most of the Northern Hemisphere - the modestly-sized CFK is only the size of Portugal but contains 1 in 5 of every plant in Africa (including 50% of those found south of the Zambezi) and is the most diverse of all the 6 floral kingdoms, even pushing the tropical rainforests into second place.
The Cape Floral Kingdom is made up of a number of biomes - areas of environment-adapted vegetation - of which the fynbos (Dutch for 'fine bush' - named after the small, needle-like leaves characteristic of much of the flora) is by far the largest.
Essentially a mix of shrubby ericas (heathers) and bushy proteas plus the reed-like restios, the fynbos is also packed full of some of the most bizarre-looking plants you'll see.
Fleshy-leaved stalks finish with a startling flourish of colour; wildly extravagant bushes burst into sunshine yellow flowers; alien-looking orchids and lilies push their way out of the sand - it's an explosion of colour and form that is utterly bewildering.
Equally as jaw-dropping is the endemism involved: of the fynbos' 9 000 or so species, some 70% are found nowhere else - and in the Kogelberg Reserve a handful of plants are restricted to just a few boggy mountain tops.
What does all this mean? Well, see for yourself - it's easy enough. Take the ridiculously scenic R44 - Clarence Drive - from Gordon's Bay to Kleinmond on the other side of Cape Town's False Bay.
Try not to steer the car off the road as you gape at the sea views, pass Betty's Bay and turn inland on a signposted gravel road a kilometre before the Palmiet River dam.
It's pretty quiet around these parts. The official at the entrance gate was fast asleep when I arrived and the only sounds were the distant artillery-like rumbling of the ocean and over-excited birds in full song.
There are various trails - some a couple of hours; others a full day's hike. I set off on the latter, a 24km circuit that takes you on a most extraordinary journey: damp valleys, silent, sun-dappled forests, steep slopes and wide, tumbling rivers.
It was about 6 hours before I saw anyone - 2 walkers with whom I swopped cheery hellos and how fars - and that was it for the whole day. No radio masts, no pylons, no vehicles - just endless views and captivating scenery.
That's not to say I was entirely alone: the path is scored with animal tracks - antelope, porcupine and the heart-fluttering sight of perhaps a Cape Leopard's pawprint.
A pained squeal alerted me to the presence of baboons and sure enough there they were, a troop down in the river bed casually stripping the fibrous skin off a stand of sedges and chewing the stalks like sugar cane.
I thought I had their number and settled down to spy on them, until my binoculars took me into the yellow eyes of a pair of enormous males who had (predictably) spotted me long before I had seen them and were watching me carefully; one with a long white cigarette-like stalk hanging casually from its mouth like a 1930s New York cop.
Adopting primate decorum, I lowered my gaze and walked on and the 2 hairy security men stretched back in the sun and resumed chewing.
Don't expect vast, milling herds of animals: the fynbos sits on ancient, sandy, wind and sun-blasted soil - and the result is a low animal biomass (the big stuff used to live in the neighbouring Renosterveld before its fertile soils were ploughed up for wheat and apples).
The Kogelberg is however great for birds, or at least some highly endemic species. In fact, nearly every bird I saw was either unique to the fynbos or to Southern Africa - and the lack of disturbance means that the birds seem bolder and more conspicuous - maybe I'd just had too much coffee.
A neatly painted house - the park ranger's cottage - peered around the corner as the late afternoon sun covered the mountains in shady swathes of purple - the end of the trail.
I can't say I wasn't looking forward to putting my feet up for a bit - although the hike doesn't involve any serious climbing, it's 8 hours on the go - and I wouldn't particularly want to be marooned up there at night.
The Kogelberg may be eminently accessible from South Africa's 2nd largest city but it was starting to look mighty wild up there as the sun's warmth ebbed.
The car park was deserted, as it was when I arrived. I sat for a while and watched birds flitting and darting about like garden fairies on whirring wings. Strands of silvery spider web drifted past on a breeze and the air seemed to glow - a fitting final chapter to a magical destination.
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