Allotted Magic - An Oranjezicht Heritage Walking Tour

Come embrace the Autumn sun this Sunday at 14h00 for a walking tour through the most lush and fascinating of all the city bowl suburbs! x

Yes, Oranjezicht is big enough to deserve and encompass a whole two-hour walking tour! In fact it's honestly underratedly dense and diverting.

This weekend, the point of our outing will be the bucolic underside of the Table Valley: our beloved City Bowl filled up to the brim. It may be hard to believe right now but by Saturday evening you'll be able to envision Kaapstad being as leafy and peri-urban as Stellenbosch or Swellendam.

Starting from the Ou Meul Cafe on Upper Orange at 14h00, we'll successively circumnavigate Homestead Park, the Oranjezicht City Farm and the remains of the Stadsfontein before gambolling down Rosemount Avenue along the extant path of the Platteklip Stream past the grotesque display of colonial trappings we call the Hurling Pump before doubling back to criss-cross De Waal Park and the Molteno Reservoirs, meaning well in front of Welgemeend Estate and then ending with ice-cream cones from Unframed on Kloof Street because I want them to come on board as one of my sponsors sooner rather than later (rest assured we will still chat about the once-glorious tram system that gave Kloof Nek it's raison d'etre).

So what's the historic part then? Well, this path is the story of how Cape Town went from a vlek to a dorp to a stad far too quickly. In just two hours, you'll see the exponential rise of our demands for food, water, residences, leisure and community right at the foot of the most sublime of all backdrops for a city stage.

And what's more, you'll marvel at how all this space manages to still feel like a village sanctuary just a few minutes' walk from a perenially-hectic CBD...

So please come join? The best thing you could have done this Saturday or Sunday was go meet new dogs by the Victorian fountain anyway x

Yours in rabbit holes,

Cameron of CTHT x

“I had the most incredible experience and learnt so much with Cameron as our guide on the Orangezicht and Table Mountain tour. From start to finish, he was knowledgeable, engaging, and full of passion for Cape Town’s natural beauty and history. His storytelling brought the landscape to life, and he made sure everyone felt comfortable and included throughout the journey. The walk around the neighbourhood was perfectly paced, with little touches of local insight and humour that made it unforgettable. Thank you, Cameron, for sharing your love of Cape Town and its intricate history with us!”

• Rhejana D.

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 Ou Meul Restaurant on the corner of Upper Orange Street and Montrose then finishing by the Molteno Reservoir just under two hours later, so happily park somewhere in the middle or do a two-car system or (lord forbid) take the MyCiTi bus the whole day to everywhere.

- 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 Oranjezicht tour, we've chosen to fund-raise for the Pride Shelter Trust and you can inspect their brilliance here:

https://pridesheltertrust.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!