I know its way too late, but adding to the resource, having found myself revisiting Binoculars a few years later:
Nikon Sportstar EX 10x25 are reasonably priced, very user friendly and optically very good, they fit in a top shirt pocket, so you can take them anywhere, and hiking - looking for the trail ahead of you, they’re surprisingly helpful.
Considerably better quality optically and physically than equivalent Tasco or generic branded binoculars.
Vortex are now producing some excellent Binoculars and absolutely worth looking into
Next step up is the Nikon Monarch 5 8x30 but weight wise these are too close to the 8x42’s so you may as well get these for under R10,000 (!!) but these are serious birding binoculars and probably not suited to the rough and tumble of hiking.