Cape Town Excursion

View looking down from Table Mountain to Cape Town.

South Africa, and Cape Town in particular, have old connections with New Zealand primarily from the colonial period of the British Commonwealth, where ships would stop for water and food supplies on route to New Zealand. Later, on the rugby field. And, today, at the New Zealand School of Food and Wine, we have a steady stream of first generation South African students and we teach about South African wine in our WSET Wine and Spirit Trust programmes.

ASI General Assembly Group on Table Mountain

When I was invited to attend the Association of Sommeliers (ASI) general assembly in Cape Town, I knew this would provide a unique opportunity to visit their wine regions and learn more about this country.

Looking north from Cape of Good Hope.

A trip to Cape Town should include a trip south along the Cape Peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope. Driving down the Peninsula is a 6-7 hour round-trip and there are many helpful guides and drivers that can pick you up from your hotel. At the Cape, I was thrilled to climb up a rough track, on a pristine autumn day, and look north and west to the Atlantic and east to the bottom of the African continent at Cape Agulhas where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean.

Fynbos (Fine+Bush) is the distinctive vegetation that grows extensively in the Western Cape on it snutrient pour soils and includes proteas and ericas which are widely planted in New Zealand.

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, flanked by Table Mountain

The Kirstenbosch National Botantical Garden is located on the Cape Peninsula and 20 minutes drive from Cape Town CBD. Kirstenbosch dates from the early Dutch settlement in the 1650s when land was annexed by the Dutch East India Company. In 1895, Cecil John Rhodes (1853–1902), who we know as the mining magnate, founder the Zimbabwe (formally Rhodesia) and benefactor of the Rhodes Scholarship purchased Kirstenbosch.

Upon his death, Rhodes bequeathed Kirstenbosch to the government and in 1913, it became the national botanical gardens.

During Rhodes’ time the Camphor Avenue trees were planted in 1898.

To prevent the local tribes from raiding their livestock, Jan van Riebeeck, founder of the colony, created a wooden fence, with watch towers however to finish the barrier quickly, a hedge of indigenous wild almond trees (Brabejum stellatifolium), a member of the protea family.

You can see remnants of this hedge in Kirstenbosch. Read more here

The wild almond is a member of the Protea Family, most closely related to the Australian genus Macadamia, the Macadamia nut. Wild almond nuts contain cyanide and are poisonous unless specially treated by soaking and roasting, a technique discovered by the Khoisan people who used to eat them.