Cape Town Southern Suburbs
Today was a day of continuously getting lost. It was my first day of hiring a car and driving myself around Cape Town suburbs. Renting a GPS is South Africa is ridiculously expensive (?) so I’m traveling via maps alone. Decided to stay near Cape Town and spend more time at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden but made a wrong turn off the M3 highway… After that mistake I got lost in Rondebosch, Constantia, and Bishopscourt (that I know of) until eventually finding the long way to Kirstenbosh about mid afternoon. All of these areas are in Cape Town’s southern suburbs. None is a bad place to get lost.
Rondebosch
Rondebosch lies along the eastern slop of Table Mountain and is where the first group of Dutch East India Company employees settled along the Liesbeek River in the 1650s. Named after a river in Holland the Liesbeek was originally called the Amstel or Versse River. It starts in the mountain gorges above Kirstenbosch and empties into Table Bay. Today Rondebosch is the main campus of the University of Cape Town.
Constantia and Bishopscourt
Constantia is one of Cape Town’s oldest and most affluent suburbs. It’s best known for wine. The Dutch Colonial Governor of Cape Town established Groot Constantia (Great Constantia in Afrikaans) in 1684. Other popular Constantia wine farms include Steenberg (Mountain of Stone), Constantia Uitsig (Constantia Outlook), Buitenverwachting (Beyond Expectations), and Klein Constantia (Small Constantia).
Many homesteads along the Constancia wine route are excellent examples of Cape Dutch architecture. The Dutch established a number of estates and farms in the Constantia area. When the British settlers took over in the 1800s they bought many of the farms and turned them into country residences.
Bishopscourt was the last suburb I visited before stumbling upon Kirstenbosch. It’s a small, wealthy, residential suburb with about 300 households.
Kirstenbosch
Kirstenbosch is a fascinating place with much to offer including exotic plants and birds, views, and interesting, unusual large sculptings throughout the grounds. The smells are divine. During this visit I saw many birds including guinea fowl, Egyptian geese (odd-looking birds with big red feet), and others I didn’t recognize. Just learning the names of a small number of the birds and plants at Kirstenbosch is a formidable task. I plan to return often. It’s a very special place!
Muizenberg Next
As I venture further away from Cape Town, the next outing will be to Muizenberg on the Cape’s Indian Ocean side. A friend from the last trip to Cape Town, Bobby, will go with me on some of the outings. One of Bobby’s sons lives in Santa Barbara, and she promises to come visit the next time she’s in the US.