Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens - Cape Town

Originally we planned to do more wine tasting. However, a lot of wineries are closed on Sundays and so we switched plans and decided to go to the Cape Peninsular with a strong recommendation from Ann to visit the Kirstenbosch Gardens.

As we approached the peninsular, Table Mountain was in cloud but gradually shook off its shroud the nearer we got to it. We decided to go over the hill to Hout Bay where it turned out to be somewhat overcast, a little chilly and quite windy. Nevertheless we did walk to the end of one of the piers, passing rusting hulks, some no longer serviceable, along the way. On returning we browsed a sea faring bric-a-brac shop.

Marion would then have loved to go on to the Cape of Good Hope via the Chapmans Peak Drive, with its 9 km of vertiginous views and also including some 114 curves. Unfortunately for Marion anything to do with height brings me out in a cold sweat, strange for someone who used to teach rock climbing and mountaineering, so we decided to go directly to the gardens.

The gardens turned out to be fantastic. They are approaching 600 hectares in size and even though the car parks were full the gardens had lots of space and you never felt you were in anything like a crowd. The gardens are laid out in such a manner that there is lots of grass recreational space with visitors encouraged to sit admire the views, the flowers and trees, and even to take picnics and play children’s’ games.
Not being a gardener I really could not give a detailed account of the flowers and trees that we saw. Suffice it to say that Marion was in seventh heaven and we pretty much saw all 600 hectares of the garden.

To get more information and a very detailed view of it try their web site at www.sanbi.org/frames/kirstfram.htm .

We started with an early lunch and finished with afternoon tea. I should also mention that views from the garden over Cape Town were stunning.

Do not forget you can view photographs of each event at www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/idurrellmeister .