Southern Suburbs and Cape Flats

The suburbs of Woodstock and Observatory, slowly gentrifying but still rough around the edges, begin where the city centre ends. Beyond the latter, the formerly whites-only residential areas of the Southern Suburbs, Anglophone neighbourhoods with a British feel to their leafy avenues and prestigious schools, stretch down the eastern side of Table Mountain towards the False Bay coast. Greener and more forested than the Atlantic Coast, this side of the peninsula is home to the sublime Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Further afield, in the Constantia winelands, lie South Africa’s oldest wineries, and in the same vicinity is Tokai Forest, a relaxing refuge from the midsummer sun. Stretching east of the M5 highway are the Cape Flats; once the apartheid dumping ground for black and coloured people, these township-covered flatlands now offer rewarding experiences of everyday African life.

Arrival and departure: SOUTHERN SUBURBS and CAPE FLATS

By car The quickest way of reaching the Southern Suburbs from central Cape Town is the M3 highway; outside rush hour, it takes about 30min to drive the 20km to Tokai, where the highway ends. During the week, the traffic is appalling – avoid the M3 southbound between 3.30pm and 6pm, and use it only after 9am from the south to reach the centre.

By train Metrorail’s Southern Line, from Cape Town Station to Fish Hoek and Simon’s Town, runs through the Southern Suburbs, providing a handy and safe means of reaching many of these areas. However, there are no stops within walking distance of the Rhodes Memorial, Kirstenbosch, Constantia or Tokai, so you’ll have to pick up a taxi or Uber from the closest train station. Metrorail’s Central and Cape Flats lines serve the townships, but we recommend you avoid taking public transport to these areas and only visit on a guided tour.

By minibus Shared minibus taxis run from Cape Town Station to Wynberg via Victoria/Main Rd (M4), passing through Woodstock, Observatory, the Baxter Theatre and close to the Irma Stern Museum. You can hail minibuses in both directions on this route. Minibus taxis also serve the Cape Flats and African townships, and most of the train stations (especially Cape Town, Mowbray, Claremont and Wynberg) have crowds of shared taxis outside waiting to rush people home from work. MyCiTi buses serve Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha, although we don’t recommend taking any public transport to the Cape Flats and African townships; the network is also set to expand to the Southern Suburbs.

By bus The hop-on, hop-off City Sightseeing bus’ Blue Mini Peninsula Tour stops at Kirstenbosch and Constantia Nek; the latter links with the Purple Wine Tour, which visits three Constantia wine estates (086 173 3287, citysightseeing.co.za).

Woodstock

One of Cape Town’s oldest suburbs, and still a predominantly working-class coloured area, Woodstock is gradually gentrifying, having already become the city’s premier design district. Newcomers snap up and renovate pretty old Victorian houses, while each block of Woodstock’s stretches of Albert and Victoria/Main roads brings a new cluster of design and artisan coffee shops, art galleries, custom-made furniture stores and high-end shopping arcades. Juma’s Tours offers walking tours of the area’s street art and galleries.

Meanwhile, on the crumbling side streets, you will still pass old folk conversing on their stoeps, and keeping an eye on their grandchildren playing on the pavement – evoking an image of what nearby District Six must have been like before the forced removals to the Cape Flats.

Albert Road

Old Biscuit Mill Mon–Fri 10am–4pm, Sat 9am–2pm • 021 447 8194, theoldbiscuitmill.co.za • Woodstock Exchange Mon–Fri 8am–5pm, Sat 8am–2pm • 021 486 5999, woodstockexchange.co.za • Woodstock Foundry Mon–Fri 9am–4.30pm, Sat 9am–noon • 021 422 0466, woodstockfoundry.co.za

A visit to these outer city fringes should take in three main hubs, all of which are situated along the Woodstock section of Albert Road; best known is the Old Biscuit Mill, at number 375, where you can eat yourself silly and wander around craft and design shops. The former biscuit factory houses two of the city’s best contemporary restaurants, Test Kitchen and Pot Luck Club, and the terrific organic and artisanal Neighbourgoods food market.

The Woodstock Exchange (66 Albert Rd), 1km west of the Old Biscuit Mill, has become a byword for everything hip and creative in Cape Town’s coolest neighbourhood with its vibrant community of boutiques, all housed in a converted warehouse. The appealing items on offer range from Grandt Mason Originals’ handmade footwear to Honest’s raw organic chocolate, while the complex’s café, Superette, serves craft beers and locally roasted coffee.

Between the two, at 170 Albert Road, the Woodstock Foundry fills a renovated heritage building with a creative mix of shops, Tribe coffee roastery and studio space. Check their website and Facebook page for occasional Open Studio Nights.

Observatory

Abutting the southeastern end of Woodstock, “Obs” is generally regarded as Cape Town’s bohemian hub, a reputation fuelled by its proximity to the University of Cape Town in Rondebosch and its large student population. Many of the houses here are student digs, but the narrow Victorian streets are also home to a fun-loving crowd of young professionals, artists and musicians. With their wrought-iron balconies, the attractively dilapidated and peeling buildings on Lower Main Road, and the streets off this atmospheric main drag, have some inviting neighbourhood cafés and bars, while the shops sell everything from wholefood and cheese to African fabrics and antiques.

Heart of Cape Town Museum

Old Building, Groote Schuur Hospital, Main Rd • Daily 9am–5pm; guided tours at 9am, 11am, 1pm & 3pm • R300 including tour • 021 404 1967, heartofcapetown.co.za

Towering over “hospital bend” on the N2 as it curves around Devil’s Peak, the hulking Groote Schuur Hospital witnessed history in 1967, when pioneering cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first successful heart transplant here. Inside, the Heart of Cape Town Museum covers the groundbreaking procedure, including the ethical issues raised at the time, and features the restored theatres where the operation took place. You can visit the museum under your own steam, but taking the informative two-hour guided tour is recommended given the expensive entrance fee. The city’s Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital provides more information on the Karoo-born Barnard’s life and work.

Mowbray and Rosebank

South of Observatory is Mowbray, originally called Drie Koppen (Three Heads) after the heads of three slaves were impaled here in 1724, following their execution for insurrection. In the nineteenth century, Mowbray was the home of German linguist Wilhelm Bleek, who lived here with a group of San convicts given up by the colonial authorities so he could study their languages and attitudes. Bleek’s pioneering work still forms the basis of much of what we know about traditional Khoisan life.

To Mowbray’s south, Rosebank has a substantial student community, and university residences, blocks of flats and sports fields dominate the area. The main reason to pass through these largely residential areas is to visit one of Cape Town’s cultural gems, the Irma Stern Museum.

Irma Stern Museum

Cecil Rd, Rosebank • Tues–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 10am–2pm • R10 • irmastern.co.za

Irma Stern is lauded as one of South Africa’s greatest artists, for her vividly expressive and sensual portraits, still lifes and landscapes, which brought modern European ideas to South Africa in the twentieth century and now sell for millions of dollars. The Irma Stern Museum was the famously larger-than-life artist’s home and studio for 38 years, until her death in 1966, and is definitely worth visiting to see her collection of African, Iberian, oriental and ancient artefacts. The whole house, in fact, reflects Stern’s fascination with exoticism, from her own Gauguinesque paintings of African figures to the fantastic carved doors she brought back from Zanzibar. Even the garden brings a touch of the tropics to Cape Town, with its exuberant bamboo thickets and palm trees.

The life and work of Irma Stern

Born in South Africa’s North West Province in 1894 to German-Jewish parents, Irma Stern studied at Germany’s Weimar Academy. In reaction to the academy’s conservatism, she adopted expressionist distortion in her paintings, and exhibited alongside the German Expressionists in Berlin. Returning to Cape Town in 1920, over the following decades she went on several expeditions to Zanzibar and the Congo, where she found the colourful and exotic inspiration for her intensely sensuous paintings, which shocked conservative South Africa.

Although Stern’s work was appreciated in Europe, South African critics initially derided her style as simply a cover for technical incompetence; “ugliness as a cult”, said one headline. South African art historians now regard her as the towering figure of her generation, and at Bonhams London in 2011, her Arab Priest (1945) fetched £3.1 million, the highest auction price ever achieved by a South African artwork. Stern’s portraits range from the much-reproduced The Eternal Child (1916), a simple but vibrant depiction of a young girl, to her many later portrayals of African women.

Rondebosch

South of Rosebank, Rondebosch is home to the University of Cape Town (UCT), whose handsome nineteenth-century buildings sit grandly on the mountainside, their creeper-festooned facades overlooking the M3 highway. University campuses nationwide have seen many protests in recent years, and UCT’s found focus in the 2015 #RhodesMustFall movement, which toppled its prominent statue of Cecil Rhodes, the nineteenth-century British imperialist, diamond-mining magnate and founder of De Beers. The movement objected to the statue’s colonial associations.

With one of Cape Town’s premier arts complexes, the Baxter Theatre, and many of the city’s best schools nearby, this is the heartland of liberal, educated, English-speaking Cape Town.

The Woolsack

Woolsack Drive, UCT Middle Campus • Leave the M3 (Rhodes Dr) at exit 7, just after the Mostert’s Mill windmill if you are coming from the city centre

Sir Herbert Baker designed The Woolsack as “cottage in the woods for poets and artists” for Cecil John Rhodes, prime minister of the Cape (1890–1896) and much-maligned colonial poster boy. Rhodes duly invited Rudyard Kipling to “hang up his hat there” whenever he visited the Cape. Taking his friend at his word, Kipling fled the English winter every year from 1900 to 1907, bringing his family to Cape Town and spending five to six months at the Woolsack, where he is said to have written his famous poem If. Restored in 2003, the house is now a student residence.

Rhodes Memorial

Rhodes Memorial St • Restaurant and tea garden daily 9am–5pm • 021 687 0000, rhodesmemorial.co.za • Leave the M3 (Rhodes Dr) at exit 8

On a site chosen by Herbert Baker and Rudyard Kipling, the Rhodes Memorial, a monument to Cecil Rhodes stands grandiosely against the slopes of Devil’s Peak as herds of wildebeest and zebra nonchalantly graze nearby. Built in 1912 to resemble a Greek temple, the memorial celebrates Rhodes’ energy with a sculpture of a wildly rearing horse. Carved in stone beneath the empire-builder’s bust is a ponderous inscription by Kipling: “The immense and brooding spirit still shall order and control.” Also on site is a relaxing restaurant and tea garden with terrific views of Cape Town.

Newlands and Claremont

If you continue south from Rondebosch along either the M3 or the more congested Main Road, you’ll pass some of Cape Town’s most prestigious suburbs. Newlands is home to the city’s famous rugby and cricket stadiums, and its Montebello Craft and Design Centre is worth a stop.

Further south, the well-heeled suburb of Claremont is an alternative focus to the city centre for shopping at Cavendish Square Mall. Its layout is a little bewildering for first-time visitors, but it is well equipped with high-quality shops, restaurants and a cinema, while vendors in the adjoining street market sell clothes, vegetables, herbs and more. You will find more street snacks across busy Main Road in the train station area.

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

Rhodes Drive • Gardens April–Aug daily 8am–6pm, Sept–March daily 8am–7pm; open-air concerts Sun evenings, late Nov to early April; coffee shop daily 7am–7pm; tea room daily 8.30am–5pm; restaurant Sat–Thurs 9am–6pm, Fri 9am–11pm • Adults R60, children 6–17 R15, children under 6 free; adult concert tickets R125–190 • 021 799 8783, sanbi.org/gardens/kirstenbosch • The City Sightseeing Bus stops at the garden every 20min on its Blue Mini Peninsula Tour; Golden Arrow buses run six services every weekday from Mowbray train station to the garden (7am–4pm), with the 12.35pm service originating at the Golden Acre terminus in the city centre

The unmissable Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden climbs the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, 13km from the city centre. Established in 1913, this is one of the Earth’s great natural treasure troves; a status acknowledged in 2004 when the biodiverse Cape Floristic Region, which Kirstenbosch showcases, became South Africa’s sixth UNESCO World Heritage Site – making Kirstenbosch the world’s first botanical garden to achieve this. The listing recognizes the international significance of the fynbos vegetation and the Cape plant kingdom that predominate here, attracting botanists from all over the world.

Little signboards and paved paths guide you through the garden’s highlights, with trees and plants identified to enhance the rambling. Allow a couple of hours to visit Kirstenbosch, a stunning picnic spot with ample shelter from Cape Town’s battering summer winds.

An exciting feature is the Tree Canopy Walkway or “Boomslang”, a steel-and-timber bridge that snakes its way up and through the trees of the Arboretum, with panoramic views of the garden and surrounding mountains. Five trails of varying difficulty explore the garden, including the Braille Trail starting at the Fragrance Garden; created for blind visitors, it has information signs in Braille and an abundance of aromatic and textured plants.

The garden has a pleasant tea room, serving breakfast, lunch and picnics just inside Gate 2, as well as a Vida e Caffè coffee shop just outside Gate 1 and a Moyo restaurant between the two gates.

Walks

The garden trails off into the wild vegetation covering a huge expanse of the rugged eastern slopes and wooded ravines of Table Mountain – its setting is quite breathtaking. Two popular paths that climb the mountain from the Contour Path above Kirstenbosch are Skeleton Gorge and the Nursery Ravine. While the garden is safe from crime, if you are hiking up Table Mountain, or onwards to Constantia Nek along the Contour Path, the usual safely precautions should be followed. The northern route to Newlands Forest and the Rhodes Memorial is not recommended following a spate of muggings.

Concerts

If you’re visiting Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in summer, one of its undoubted delights is to bring a picnic for a Sunday-evening open-air concert, where you can lie back on the lawn, sip Cape wine and savour the mountain air and sunset. Try to catch a local act such as Hugh Masekela, Jeremy Loops, Goldfish or Freshlyground, and arrive early to secure a good spot for your blanket.

Bishopscourt

Affluent Bishopscourt is south of Newlands, most easily reached from the M3 by turning off after the Kirstenbosch garden junction. As its name suggests, the suburb is home to the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, and it was in a mansion here that Archbishop Desmond Tutu lived even in the years when black people weren’t supposed to live in white-only suburbs. Partly because of its prime siting – some plots have views of both the mountain-hugging Newlands Forest and False Bay – this area is one of the city’s most larney (‘posh’ in South African slang). Diplomats and old money are secreted in huge properties behind high walls, which are about all you see as you pass through.

Cape Dutch architecture

The Cape Dutch style, which developed in the Western Cape from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, is so distinctively rooted in Constantia and the Cape Winelands that it has become an integral element of the landscape. The dazzling limewashed walls glisten in the midst of glowing green vineyards, while the thatched roofs and elaborate curvilinear gables mirror the undulations of the surrounding mountains. Although there were important developments in the internal organization of Cape houses during this period, their most obvious element is the external gable. Central gables set into the long side of roofs were unusual in Europe, but became the quintessential feature of the Cape Dutch style.

In central Cape Town, the gable only survived until the 1830s, to be replaced by buildings with flush facades and flat roofs. Arson appears to be a major reason for this; fires, purportedly started by slaves, including the one that razed Stellenbosch in 1710, and Cape Town’s great fires of 1736 and 1798, led officials to ban thatched roofs and protrusions on building exteriors. With the disappearance of pitched roofs, the urban gable withered away, surviving symbolically in some instances as minimal roof decoration; an example of this is the wavy parapet on the Bo-Kaap Museum.

The threat of fire spreading from one building to another was a less serious consideration in the countryside. Consequently, Dutch East India Company building regulations carried little weight and the pitched roof survived, as did gables, becoming the hallmark of country manors. From functional origins, gables evolved into symbols of wealth, with landowners vying to erect the biggest, most elaborate and most fashionable examples. Some fine gables can be found on the historic estates of the Winelands, as well as at Tokai Manor, Groot Constantia, Klein Constantia and Buitenverwachting.

Wynberg

Three stops down the train line from Claremont is Wynberg, known for its Shakespearean Maynardville Open-Air Theatre in the park of the same name. On the park’s western side is quaint Wynberg Village, where the thatched Cape Georgian cottages house art galleries and boutiques.

By contrast, Wynberg’s Main Road offers a more African shopping experience: street vendors and fabric shops ply a lively trade as minibus taxis and pedestrians hustle along the thoroughfare.

Constantia and its winelands

There is no public transport to this area, although several tours run from central Cape Town daily; the City Sightseeing bus’ Purple Wine Tour circles from Constantia Nek (a stop on its Blue Mini Peninsula Tour) to Groot Constantia, Eagles’ Nest and Beau Constantia estates; driving, take exit 14 (Constantia Main Rd) from the M3

South of Kirstenbosch lie the elegant suburb of Constantia and the Cape’s oldest winelands. Luxuriating on the lower slopes of Table Mountain and the Constantiaberg, with tantalizing views of False Bay, Constantia’s nine wine estates are an easy drive from town, all within ten minutes of the M3.

The winelands began cultivated life in 1685 as the farm of Simon van der Stel, the governor charged with opening up the fledgling Dutch colony to the interior. Now Cape Town’s oldest and most prestigious residential area, with a gentle ambience of landed wealth, Constantia is a green and pleasant shaded valley with vineyards carpeting its upper slopes. Famous past residents include Charles Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother, and Mark Thatcher, the late British prime minister’s son, who allegedly planned 2004’s failed coup in Equatorial Guinea while living here.

Constantia grapes have been making wine since Van der Stel’s first output in 1705. After his death in 1712, his estate was divided up and sold off as the modern Groot Constantia, Klein Constantia and Buitenverwachting. The major wine estates are open to the public and offer tastings; they’re worth visiting for their history and architecture as well as viticulture, even if you’re heading out of town to the Cape Winelands proper.

Groot Constantia

Groot Constantia Rd • Grounds Daily 9am–6pm • Free • Wine tasting Daily 9am–5.30pm • R75 including five wines to taste and a souvenir glass • Cellar tours Daily on the hour 10am–4pm • R100; booking essential • Visitors Route Experience R95 • Museum Daily 10am–5pm • R30 • 021 794 5128, grootconstantia.co.za

The largest Constantia estate and the one most geared to tourists is Groot Constantia, a terrific example of Cape Dutch grandeur reached along an oak-lined drive that passes through vineyards with the hazy blue Constantiaberg as its backdrop. The dozen high-end reds, whites and rosés produced here include local signature varietal Pinotage and Constantia’s celebrated Vin de Constance. The estate is restful and serene, and if you don’t want to taste the wines, you can simply walk around the vineyards and enjoy the architecture. Groot Constantia’s big pull is that it retains the rump of Van der Stel’s original farm, as well as its original buildings, which powerfully evoke life on an estate in the early Cape.

The manor house, a quintessential eighteenth-century Cape Dutch homestead rebuilt from Van der Stel’s original house, forms part of the museum. It is decorated in a style typical of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Cape landowners, containing interesting Louis XVI Neoclassical furniture and Delft and Chinese ceramics.

If you walk straight through the house and across the yard, you’ll come to the Cloete Cellar (actually a two-storey building above ground), fronted by a brilliant relief pediment. Attributed to the sculptor Anton Anreith, it depicts a riotous bacchanalia, featuring Ganymede, a young man so handsome that Zeus, in the form of an eagle, carried him off to be the cup-bearer of the gods. Also included in the museum are a coach house, wine cellar and orientation centre, the latter covering the estate’s history including the role of slavery here.

The estate has two restaurants and a deli offering picnics. Its Visitors Route Experience offers access to the manor house, the Cloete Cellar, a wine tasting and two audio walking tours. Tickets are available at Groot Constantia or through Webtickets (webtickets.co.za).

MITCHELLS PLAIN

If you’re driving east from the Muizenberg area to the Cape Winelands or the far end of False Bay, it’s possible to take the coastal Baden Powell Drive (R310). This route avoids detouring all the way up the M3 or M5 to join the N2, but seek local advice before taking it: the road is unsafe later in the day and, over weekends and public holidays, it fills with beach traffic.

Along the way you will skirt the bottom of Mitchells Plain, a coloured area. More salubrious than the African townships, Mitchells Plain reflects how, under apartheid, lighter skin meant better conditions, even if you weren’t quite white. Coloured people had their share of trauma during the forced removals from the city centre, when many were summarily forced to vacate family homes because the Group Areas Act had declared their suburb a white area. Many families were relocated to Mitchells Plain when District Six was razed, and their communities never fully recovered. One of the symptoms of this dislocation and poverty is the violent gangs that have become an everyday part of Mitchells Plain youth culture.

Klein Constantia

Klein Constantia Rd • Mon–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 10am–4.30pm, Sun 10am–4pm • R50 • 021 794 5188, kleinconstantia.com

Smaller in scale than Groot Constantia, Klein Constantia offers more casual wine tastings than at the bigger estate, and although the buildings are humbler, the setting is equally beautiful. Klein Constantia has a friendly atmosphere and produces several fine wines, most famously its Vin de Constance. This is a recreation of a historic Constantia wine that was quaffed by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century luminaries including Frederick the Great and Bismarck; as well as Napoleon, who ordered it on St Helena; and the poet Baudelaire, who compared its sweet delights to his lover’s lips. It’s a delicious dessert wine, packaged in a replica of the original bottle, and makes an original souvenir.

Buitenverwachting

Klein Constantia Rd • Tastings Mon–Fri 9am–5pm, Sat 9am–3pm • R50 • 021 794 5190, buitenverwachting.co.za

Buitenverwachting (roughly pronounced “bay-tin-fur-vuch-ting”, with the “ch” as in the Scottish rendition of loch) is another great wine estate tucked away in the Constantia suburbs, where sheep and cattle graze in the fields as you approach the main buildings. Its name means ‘beyond expectation’ in Dutch.

The architecture and setting at the foot of the Constantiaberg are as lovely as any, while their wines have attracted accolades including a five-star rating in Platter’s Wine Guide 2015. Overlooking the vineyards and backing onto the garden, the late-eighteenth-century homestead features an unusual gabled pediment broken with an urn motif. The original wine cellar and adjoining terrace are the venue for tastings and cheese and pâté platters, and the estate has a restaurant and a coffee shop.

Tokai

To drive to Tokai from central Cape Town, head south along the M3 and exit north (left) onto Ladies Mile Road. Continue for 500m before turning south (left) into Spaanschemat River Road (M42), signposted Tokai, which runs through the suburb. Alternatively, take the next exit and turn right onto Tokai Road (M40)

Effectively the southern extension of Constantia, forested Tokai is a popular area for leafy recreation away from the city centre. It offers relaxed and child-friendly places for eating and drinking, and shelter from the strong southeastern wind. You can easily combine Tokai with a trip to the seaside, as the suburb is fifteen minutes’ drive from the False Bay seaboard.

Tokai Forest

Tokai Rd • Daily: April–Sept 8am–5pm, Oct–March 7am–6pm • Free, mountain bikers R80 • 021 712 7471, tmnp.co.za

Most people come out to Tokai to picnic and mountain bike in the pine plantations of Tokai Forest, which was granted a reprieve from logging in early 2017. It is best to come in a group and stick together, as muggings have occurred. A challenging and exposed trail zigzags 6km up the Constantiaberg from the arboretum to the Elephant’s Eye Cave. Phone the arboretum for an update before coming; hikers had no access and mountain bikers had limited access at the time of writing, following summer bush fires. Mountain bikers can ride up to the cave on Saturday and Sunday, with permits and car parking available in the picnic area and plans to extend the access to weekdays. Visit tokaimtb.co.za for more information.

You can get here from the M3 via Tokai Road, which runs west into the forest. About 500m west of Orpen/Steenberg Road (M42), you’ll pass through pine forests equipped with picnic tables, though it’s worth carrying on to the arboretum when it reopens. A little further along the road from the picnic sites, you can’t fail to see the imposing and famously haunted Tokai Manor House (not open to the public). Designed by Louis Michel Thibault and built around 1795, this National Monument is an elegant gem of Cape Dutch architecture combined with the understated elegance of French Neoclassicism.

Tokai Arboretum

This historic tree plantation and National Monument is the work of Joseph Storr Lister, Conservator of Forests for the Cape Colony. In 1885, he experimented with planting 150 species of tree from temperate countries, including many oak and eucalyptus, as well as some beautiful California redwoods. Storr discovered that conifers were best suited to the Cape, hence the surrounding plantations consisting mainly of pines. Sadly, following devastating bush fires, the arboretum was closed at the time of writing; when it reopens, it is the best place in Tokai Forest to begin rambling and an ideal spot for children, with outdoor seating, plenty of shade and logs to scramble over.

The Cape Flats and the townships

The windswept Cape Flats, reaching well beyond the airport, is Cape Town’s largest residential quarter, taking in the coloured districts, African townships and informal settlements (shantytown squatter camps). The Cape Flats are exactly that: flat, barren and populous, inhabited by black and coloured people in mostly separate areas and varying degrees of poverty. But they are certainly not without hope.

The history of the townships

The African townships were historically set up as dormitories to provide labour for white Cape Town – not as places to build a life, which is why they had no facilities and no real communal hubs. The men-only hostels, another apartheid relic, are at the root of many of the area’s social problems. During the 1950s, the government set out a blueprint to turn the tide of Africans flooding into Cape Town. No African was permitted to settle permanently in the Cape west of a line near the Fish River, the old frontier over 1000km east of Cape Town; women were entirely banned from seeking work in Cape Town and men prohibited from bringing their wives to join them. By 1970, there were ten men for every woman in Langa. At the end of apartheid, hostels nationwide saw scenes of violence when black-on-black conflict began to erupt, as the Bang-Bang Club book and film recount.

The apartheid strategists ultimately failed to prevent the influx of job-seekers desperate to come to Cape Town. Where people couldn’t find legal accommodation, they set up squatter camps of makeshift iron, cardboard and plastic sheeting. During the 1970s and 1980s, the government attempted to demolish these – but no sooner had the police left than the camps reappeared, and they remain a permanent feature of the Cape Flats.

One of the best known of all South Africa’s squatter camps is Crossroads, located across the N2 highway from Cape Town International Airport. Its inhabitants suffered campaigns of harassment that included killings by apartheid collaborators and police, and continuous attempts to bulldoze it out of existence. Through sheer determination and desperation they hung on, eventually winning the right to stay, and now the shacks have been joined by tiny brick houses, with electricity supplies and running water improving the residents’ quality of life.

While countless projects are under way to foster entrepreneurship, alleviate social problems and attract tourists to the townships, everyday life in these grey and littered neighbourhoods has considerable vibrancy, with children playing, hairdressers galore, people selling sheep’s and goats’ heads, and shisa nyama (township braais) smoking away on street corners. Some Africans who can afford to move out say they find the white-dominated suburbs sterile and unfriendly, and stay on in smart suburban houses. Nearby are former men-only hostels, where now as many as three families share one room, and shacks lining the N2.

Most tours visit Langa, the oldest (established 1927) and most central township, located across the M17 from the middle-class suburb of Pinelands; Gugulethu (‘Gugs’), dating to the 1960s; or Khayelitsha (established 1983), one of South Africa’s largest and fastest growing townships, with a population of around 2.5 million.

Township Highlights

While we don’t recommend independent trips to the townships, you can ask to visit these highlights on your guided tour.

Gugulethu Seven Memorial and Amy Bielh Memorial Gugulethu. Seven solid and powerful granite statue-like constructions honour the struggle and death of the Gugulethu Seven, an anti-apartheid group who were shot and killed by members of the South African police force in 1986. Nearby, a cross marks the site where Amy Biehl, a white American anti-apartheid activist, was murdered by local residents in 1993. A moving tribute to her courageous, all-too-short life (Steve Biko St; amybiehl.co.za).

Guga S’Thebe Arts & Cultural Centre Langa. With art studios, a shop, an outdoor amphitheatre and a theatre constructed from recycled materials, this dynamic community centre nurtures creativity from drumming, theatre and pottery to sand art, beadwork and mosaics. There’s free wi-fi and Kaffa Hoist Café serves locally roasted Deluxe Coffeeworks coffee. The centre’s location just off the N2 makes it easy to visit with your own wheels, although you will get more out of the experience on a guided tour; a car guard watches vehicles parked outside. Jazz in the Native Yards concerts (facebook.com/nativeyards) take place here from time to time (cnr King Langalibalele/Washington Dr and Church St; daily 8.30am–6pm; free; 021 695 3493).

Ikhaya Le Langa Part of the Langa Quarter scheme to regenerate this neighbourhood, this social enterprise in an old primary school has attractions including a craft shop, café and “old skool toilets” with piped music. Facing it, ten homes with brightly painted facades have opened up their front rooms as art galleries. When we visited, the centre and home galleries were not running, but there were hopes of reopening so make enquiries if you visit the nearby Guga S’Thebe Arts & Cultural Centre (cnr Ndabeni and Rubuasna Sts; ikhayalelanga.co.za).

Langa Heritage Museum Cape Town’s only major township museum is dedicated to the “dompas” or pass system, which, during the apartheid years, required black citizens to carry a pass to enter “white-only” areas for work. The museum is located in the Old Pass Court, where people were tried for transgressing the pass laws. (King Langalibalele/Washington Dr; Mon–Fri 9am–4pm, Sat 9am–1pm, Sun by appointment; free; 084 949 2153 or 072 975 5442).

The Township Winery Philippi. This is Cape Town’s first township- and black-owned winery, situated in an area where patches of farmland exist amid mass housing. The winery aims to increase community ownership by giving hundreds of individual homesteads Sauvignon Blanc vines to grow at their homes. Once harvested, they will go towards production of a wine called “Township Winery”. Tastings by appointment (021 447 4476, info@townshipwinery.com, townshipwinery.com).

Visiting the Townships

The safest, easiest and most informative way to experience the townships is on a guided tour. These typically last half a day, cover one or two townships and include a visit to a local home for some food, as well as a crèche, church or community centre, and often a sangoma (traditional healer). Book ahead and check the price includes transport from your city-centre accommodation. It’s possible, too, to gain a deeper understanding of the daily lives of the majority of South Africans by staying overnight in a township homestay or B&B.

Visiting the townships under your own steam is not recommended: besides the threat of possible opportunistic crime, road signage is poor and opening and closing times erratic, so it’s hard to find your way around.

tours: the CAPE FLATS and the townships

Andulela Tours Recommended cultural tour company offering themed explorations, mostly of Langa; including the African Cooking Safari, gospel music tour and more general township tour.

Awol Tours 021 418 3803, awoltours.co.za. Walking tours of Gugulethu or the gardens of Seawinds (Muizenberg) and a cycling tour of Masiphumelele (Kommetjie).

Coffeebeans Routes The cultural tour company offers day tours including Township Futures, which visits Khayelitsha CBD, the Langa Quarter and more, with a positive focus on township projects and potential; and night tours including the Jazz Safari.

Juma’s Tours 073 400 4064, townshiparttours.co.za. Zimbabwean artist Juma Mkwela offers tours focused on the street art of Khayelitsha or Woodstock, with a Sunday itinerary incorporating lunch at a shisa nyama.

Maboneng Township Arts Experience 021 824 1773, maboneng.com. The winner of an African Responsible Tourism Award 2017 (for engaging people and culture), Maboneng’s Langa Home Gallery Tour of art galleries in township homes also includes the Guga S’Thebe Arts & Cultural Centre as well as street art and the Langa Heritage Museum. One-hour, half- and full-day experiences are available, with African home cooking offered on longer itineraries.

Laura’s Township Tours 082 979 5831, laurastownshiptours.co.za. Itineraries themed around cooking or gospel music, as well as a general tour, with Gugulethu local Laura Ndukwana.

Uthando 021 683 8523, uthandosa.org. Popular tours of Uthando’s community projects, focused on work such as urban agriculture and animal welfare.

Vamos 072 499 7866, vamos.co.za. Walking and cycling tours and more.

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