The most beautiful garden in Africa

A hundred years ago, a dedicated botanist called Harold Pearson began the task of transforming a huge, overgrown and neglected tract of land on the slopes of Table Mountain into the continent's most beautiful garden.

Pearson saw the potential for a spectacular indigenous garden under the mountains to display the Cape's floral kingdom - the richest variety of plant life in the smallest area existing in the world.

In a time before excavation machinery, the job was undertaken manually with spades, shovels and mule carts, Pearson labouring alongside a team of only a handful of men after work and on weekends.

He channelled the water that cascades naturally in waterfalls down the mountainside into streams and ponds ...

to provide irrigation for the Cape's indigenous flora ...

Cycads that survived the dinosaur area, and tree ferns (Cyathea dregei below) ...

Proteas - one of the oldest species of plant life in the world, its ancestors going back 300 million years ...

Pelargoniums, one of many species indigenous to this area that have given rise to popularly known plants in the rest of the world (where they're often wrongly called geraniums) ...

Stone Age people inhabited these mountains aeons ago, and since then Khoi and San people and European settlers have all left their mark.

It's also home to protected bird and animal life. Walking round the gardens with my mother on my last day in Cape Town we watched an Egyptian goose dive-bombing another from the air ...

Harold Pearson died young, before he saw his vision to completion, and is buried in the gardens. Today the Kirstenbosch botanical garden is a UNESCO World Heritage site and rated one of the seven top botanical gardens of the world.

There's a fragrance garden, a Braille trail for the blind, a garden of plants threatended with extinction, a garden  featuring plants used by traditional African healers ... and a fabulous collection of Mambo stone sculptures from Zimbabwe as well as sculptor Dylan Lewis's famous animals in action ...

Photos on display for this year's centenary celebrations show some historic moments in the garden's (and the country's) history ...

These ladies are horticulturalists (with what must be one of the best jobs in the world) and the only ones who are allowed to pick flowers here.

I was lucky to have a solo walk with my mother as a guide. She is one of Kirstenbosch's leading guides and last year was awarded an honorary life membership in recognition of her work and botanical knowledge.

Thanks for the tour, mum, and I hope you enjoyed the pics!

Vineyard escapades

On freezing winter days do you dream of lying on a four-poster bed in a summer garden?

The Alphen, Constantia, Cape Town

You can, if you like, in these rose, herb and lavender filled gardens where a duel was once fought between an army captain and a doctor named James Barry, supposedly over the affections of a daughter of the house. Both missed, happily - and probably intentionally, since they were actually best friends! James Barry went on to a celebrated career as a surgeon, performing the first Caesarian section in South Africa.

The twist in the tale is that on 'his' death in 1865, James Barry was discovered to be a woman. A petite, fiery redhead, she had disguised herself as a man in order to be accepted into Edinburgh's medical school and later as a surgeon with the military in India and South Africa.
Look at her - good grief, surely somebody must have cottoned on?

The Alphen manor house and wine cellars (below) are part of the Constantia Valley vineyards, only 10 miles from the city of Cape Town.

Hydrangeas are called 'Christmas flowers' here, and already just past their best by late January

Today the Alphen is a beautiful hotel for people visiting Cape Town, though for Capetonians it's a place to go for breakfast under the trees after a walk through the vineyards -

My niece and I met up here for a drink looking over the pool right here one evening

and another friend and I for tea and carrot cake in the garden

 Besides pistol duels and famous cross-dressers, this area has seen a lot of colourful history. Nearby at Groot Constantia is where the wine-making all began, in 1685, when Dutch colonists found this lush valley to be perfect for growing vines ...

Napoleon supposedly had 30 bottles of Constantia wines shipped over to Elba once a month to ease the pain of exile (that's a bottle a night, which would surely have done the trick). 

King Louis Philippe of France, Frederick the Great, England's George IV and Bismarck all dispatched emissaries to fetch crates of the stuff, and Dickens, Baudelaire and Jane Austen waxed lyrical about them. (Austen recommended 'a glass of Constantia' for 'its healing powers on a disappointed heart', she and Napoleon clearly both knowing a thing or two about drinking for solace). 

You can drink Constantia wines here too, at The Cellars (above and below), down the road

which is where my friend Lorelle and I met one evening for a glass of bubbly

and had this terrace with a view to the mountains all to ourselves

barring a few ducks and a curious cat

Lorelle gets to come here for a morning coffee or an evening glass of Constantia wine whenever she likes

... lucky fish.
Happy birthday and Valentine's day, Lorelle xo

Business, African style

Gibson Rugwinya happened to be cycling down the road as I was getting out of my car at my friend's house one early evening. We smiled and greeted one another. This is not a country where strangers politely ignore one another, so I was only mildly surprised when Gibson, a total stranger to me, jumped off his bike to give me a great bear-hug.

He was interested in the camera over my shoulder, and in what kinds of pictures I like to take. We exchanged some life history and I learned that he was not local but from Namibia. Then he told me he was an artist and had a certain gift. 

Because I have a love affair with the kind of artistic creativity that flourishes here, usually involving recycled materials, I expressed an interest, and Gibson opened a battered box tied to the back of his bicycle.

(At this point I was really hoping I would like what I was about to see, because it was going to be awfully hard to turn down someone of Gibson's charm).

I loved what I saw. Working from discarded sheet metal, Gibson creates busy, active people, from hunters to athletes to musicians. 

I loved this quartet, but  there was a problem. I didn't have cash on me to pay for them.
No problem! said Gibson. Take them, and I will write down the number of my savings account.

So you're going to give me these sculptures and trust that I will pay you?

Gibson looked affronted. Of course I trust you! We're friends now!

Inspiration ...

... is the theme of this month's BIO blogpost by a group of international bloggers. I'm late to the party (life trumps blogging again) but having just returned from a trip to Cape Town, this is undoubtedly my source of inspiration at the moment, and surely with good reason ...

Observation wheel with views of Table Mountain and Cape Town harbour, Waterfront 

It's partly the unfair proportions of natural beauty -  mountains ...

Mountain backdrop, Kirstenbosch gardens

two oceans ...

Atlantic ocean side of peninsula, beneath Twelve Apostles mountain range

vineyards ...

Vineyard terraces on the mountain slope at Groot Constantia wine estate

and the richest variety of floral species in the world ...

floral abundance at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

all colliding in one peninsula jutting out from the tip of the African continent is a hard combination to beat. 

Seafood and views from Harbour House Café, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront

More than that, it's the spirit that inspires people here to create beauty in their surroundings

Cape Dutch gables, Hadeda (Ibis) and agapanthus at 17th century Groot Constantia wine farm

to care very much about quality of life

Under oak trees in the shade of the mountain at Gardener's Cottage restaurant, Montebello craft centre, Newlands

aesthetics -  beauty or the appreciation of beauty

Shabby bicycle chic at Cafeen coffee shop, Harfield Village

late 18th century (in the sense 'relating to perception by the senses'): from Greek aisthētikos, from aisthēta 'perceptible things', from aisthesthai 'perceive'

Cheese cake with lavender under the vines at High Tea, Wynberg

in food and daily living

All in the details: faded pinks at Orchid Café, Wynberg village

attention to details that make a difference

Mariage Frères tea at La Petite Tarte, Old Cape Quarter

imagination

Driftwood chandelier and hearts at Manna, Kloof Street

This is what inspires me