The Original Garden City - A Company Gardens Heritage Walking Tour

Were you waiting around to start your Cape Town Heritage Tours adventure from the very first chapter?

Well, tarry no more because the time has finally arrived - this Saturday afternoon at 14h00 - to continue on our next triumphant circuit through the psychogeography of this pearl of a peninsula just behind the arch of the beloved Labia Theatre.

At the end of Autumn, we return to the centre of our Town for arguably the best heritage walk of them all! In fact, the walk itself is a piece of heritage, bridging in just 1 km three centuries of pedestrian life at the outermost edge of this continent.

Government Avenue is, for most of us at least, the shady, sleepy shortcut separating the Mount Nelson from the lights of the CBD. But if you go through it with a sharp-eyed guide, you'll rediscover it as the very first site of struggle in the West's 'domestication' of Africa.

In fact, there is perhaps no single space in the world in which so many of the contradictions, traumas and romantic ideals of Colonialism exist side-by-side for the sake of our curiosity and critique.

From the rows of Northern Oaks first laid out by Simon van der Stel, to the plague of American squirrels imported wholesale by Cecil Rhodes, to the still-illustrious Cape Dutch temples that signify the South African birth-places of Formal Education, Botany, Painting, Natural Science, Bibliophilia, Warfare and Representative Government itself.

But along with that conservative clout comes a suppressed history of slow-building cosmopolitan citizenship. Along this strip is also the first official synagogue beneath the Sahara, the first monument of friendship with the people of Japan, the first truly global seed-market for exotic flora from every continent, and the site where Nelson Mandela first laughed while shaking P.W. Botha's hand, celebrating a new covenant for a halfway-reconciled nation.

On top of all this, it is simply the road known and loved by the most South Africans throughout our epoch. So let's join their tangible shadows for a loose, casual meander from the top to the bottom and back again, getting to know the heart and stomach of our city all along the way.

Bring your own water, jackets and questions.

Love to you all for reading this far ??

“What an entertaining and insightful walk through most probably the oldest garden in Southern Africa. Cameron provided us with his knowledge, passion and artistic talent in reliving the human endeavors and experiences over the last 4 centuries. The Companje Tuine of mid 17th centuries were conjured up through readings and historic story telling. He went on to contextualise the old and the new worlds with a baton of words. Magical thx”

• Tinka W.

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 at the Labia and finishing by the Saffron Pear Tree in the Botanical Gardens section, so happily park in Queen Victoria Street or the lot by the Gardens Bowls Club off Wandel Street if you're coming by car.

- 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 Company Gardens tour, we've chosen to fund-raise for the Hope Exchange and you can inspect their brilliance here:

https://thehopeexchange.org

- 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!