In March 2016 a fire swept through part of the reserve including the Arboretum and the hide was irreparably damaged. A lot of the work we did creating the Arboretum was wiped out, including signage and fencing.
It was a good opportunity to rethink the location of the hide and, after much discussion, we settled on the wall of the Lilly Pond, part of the Dodds dam area. The views are better from there and there is a mixture of water birds and others. Rudi set out to build the new hut, constructed mainly from bits salvaged from the old one. It was put up in June 2016.
The fire was long overdue so in the long run the fynbos will benefit but seeing all our signage and other work destroyed was rather devastating. This was left of our precious hide we were so proud of and, judging by all the positive comments in our visitors book (also burnt) was well liked by the public. We set about cleaning the remnants away and gave up the idea of ever having another hide
