The Spring Cathedral - A Kirstenbosch Heritage Walking Tour

Do you think you know the story of the world's most beautiful garden? Have you ever found your way in through the back door?

Are you a human being with adequate senses and aesthetic criteria? Well you've come across the right Saturday outing description!

If a traumatic wildfire like April 2021's can ultimately prove to be of meaningful value, it should come by inspiring us to relish the heritage we keep on our doorstep, no matter how beloved and indestructible it may seem.

That’s why I want to take you through Kirstenbosch via Cecilia Forest in the span of one afternoon this Saturday, spelling out the history and litanies of beauty stuffed into the small borders of the city’s favourite world-class botanically-themed amusement park.

To me it seems we don’t quite know how to value greenery beyond being the best incidental scenery, but through the story of Kirstenbosch’s founding and global power as the throne of the Fynbos kingdom, we can discover all we could ever need to know about the contradictions of colonialism, the ‘beloved’ texture of our country, the roots of our gated community and the many varieties of splendour upon which we can base our visions for the future.

There is no more florally biodiverse space in the universe (as far as we can tell), and by anthologising the best of our biome under the sometime shadow of Castle Buttress, the city has spent four generations battling brutal urban planning, compulsory veldtfires, enervating tourists and all the hecticness of the anthropocene to bequeath us with a site that millions of visitors and citizens could hardly have dreamt up before.

You’ll learn about the loneliest tree in the world, the famous 'Bird' bath named after a chap and shaped like a bird, the first still-living vestige of Apartheid and Cecil Rhodes’s half-finished plan for a private highway stretching from his back-garden to the pub at Constantia Nek. And we’ll also point out some nice flowers and birds and smells along the way too.

So let’s gather at 14h00 on Saturday at the Cecilia Forest entrance car-park with a picnic basket and walking shoes, pay homage to the wonders of our soil, and aspire to finish the day knowing at least two more facts about the fauna and flora of our alien peninsula than we woke up with.

RSVP for places, ensure your transport details beforehand and pay your entrance fee to me (since we're not going through the front gate) so you can join next week’s one knowing you’ve helped spread love and knowledge of our gorgeous home for a few more weekends at least.

Cheers! x

“My fiancé and I had an amazing tour from Cecilia Forest to Kirstenbosch with Cameron. He was super informative, friendly, and made the experience engaging and enjoyable. Highly recommend this tour with Cameron as the guide!”

• Joshua C.

P.S. If you've read this far I'm guessing you'll want even more of the specs, so here goes:

- We'll be starting by the entrance to the Cecilia Forest Car Park and finishing after an hour-long hike and a 90-minute wander around the historic parts of Kirstenbosch, by one of the lakes in the middle of the rolling greens, so happily park on either side or organise an Uber carpool if needs be. I’ll be providing lifts back to the starting point anyway.

- We've just put up our ticket prices for the first time in two-and-a-half years, from R120pp to R150pp. Obviously this is just to keep with inflation and to allow the tours to remain a sustainable enterprise for the foreseeable future, but this is still about R50 less per person than our nearest competition. In other words, we are deliberately undercharging the tours so as to keep them affordable for locals and visitors alike and to encourage guests to come back weekend after weekend.

- Book via Quicket, WhatsApp us on 076 033 8164, E-mail us on [email protected] or Message us via the buttons on our home page to secure your place.

- We have also just introduced a broad scheme of discounts you can apply for on each tour, so please do consult the list below before contacting us!

- And we've decided to partner with a different local NGO or charity for each and every one of our tour routes so that R10 of every ticket purchased goes directly to a good, sustainable, local cause. For the Kirstenbosch tour, we've chosen to fund-raise for the Botanical Society of South Africa and you can inspect their brilliance here:

https://botsoc-kirstenbosch.org.za

- This is a consistently well-reviewed heritage-focused walking tour; which is to say that all you'll need to enjoy yourself is curiosity about Cape Town's past (and History in general) and enough stamina to walk just less than 3km in one afternoon (with stops and snacks).

- If you're rejoining us, please please please please please please consider dropping us a short (or extensive) review on our Facebook Reviews or Google Reviews section as it will help spread our gospel of curiosity and playful appreciation across the internet and across the spectrum of all potential visitors to the Cape. It helps us more than you can believe!

- You can also add an optional R10 donation on your ticket which will go directly to the NGO Streetscapes as part of our mission to spread love, enthusiasm, mutual support and respect for all of Cape Town's people and histories. Just think how many people we could help and the difference we could make with a few hundred tours!

- Feel absolutely free to spread the word, invite friends who've been looking for this kind of experience and badger us with every imaginable heritage query. We live for it!

Can't wait to meet ya, really! ??

THE CTHT DISCOUNT LIST:

1. Guests over 65 and under 18 can claim a 33% discount on each ticket, at R100pp pre-booked.

2. If you buy tickets for both the Saturday and Sunday tours on one weekend, you can claim R50 off each ticket, at R200pp pre-booked.

3. If you buy a Cape Town Heritage Tours Tote-Bag or any of our books on sale at our Half-Booked Online Shop, you can claim a free tour voucher for each piece of merchandise.

4. You can buy individual advance vouchers for our public tours at R150 each and then message in the week before a scheduled tour. But you can also buy value-packs of five for the price of 4 (R600), 10 for the price of 7 (R1050) or all 18 for the price of 10 (R1500).

5. If you bring 2 or more friends on a weekend tour you can claim R30 back on each of your tickets, at R120pp pre-booked.

6. If you share the posts promoting individual tours you can claim R30 back as well, at R120pp.

7. If you review the tours on Google Reviews, Facebook or TripAdvisor (at any rating) you can claim 50% off your next ticket, at R75pp pre-booked.

8. Likewise if you recommend the tours to a friend who then attends a weekend tour, you can claim 50% off your next ticket, at R75pp pre-booked.

See ya next weekend!