Tent Travels: Hantam floral fiesta

AFTER all our Namaqualand wanderings, we finally caught up with the spring flowers at Nieuwoudtville, a charming little town that is proud to call itself the bulb capital of the world.

It also has a new botanical garden. Created by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi), the gently unstructured, informally laid out Hantam National Botanical Garden is a showcase for many of its famous bulbs – and a world-class attraction.

To give you an idea of the town’s floral diversity, some 300 geophytes (plants with underground storage organs like bulbs, corms or rhizomes) can be found in the area; that represents about a fifth of all those within the Cape Floral Kingdom. One of the most beautiful of the town’s bulbs is the Geissorhiza splendidissima, which goes by the common name of blue pride of Nieuwoudville. A host of other flowers – sparaxis, gazania and arctotis species to name a few – vie for your attention. According to the staff at the botanical garden, whole fields turn into a pink haze in autumn when the Brunsvigia bosmaniae flower.

Knowing that we’d probably be too late to see the spring floral spectacle on our ‘Filling in the Gap’ trip, we hadn’t been disappointed to find most of the flowers and their followers had headed south by the time we’d reached Namaqualand. The last of the flowers had still lingered as small patches here and there and although we’d realised this was small fry compared to the main show we’d been grateful for these lesser visual treats.

We were told the flowers weren’t quite at their best when we arrived in Nieuwoudtville but, wow, what we saw at the botanical garden was really wonderful and such a delightful surprise. But then, road trips through any part of South Africa are always full of delightful surprises.

Even driving to Nieuwoudtville was a pleasure. After spending a weekend with friends in Lamberts Bay, we packed up and left early on the Monday morning, looking forward to another laid-back road tripping day. As we were only booked into the Tankwa Karoo National park the next day, we decided to visit Nieuwoudtville then head slowly towards Calvinia to see if we could find some pleasant place to put up our tent that night.

Soon after leaving we reached Clanwilliam, a really pretty little town where we did a bit of shopping and sight-seeing, then we headed north towards Vanrhynsdorp – slowly. Road works were in progress and there were many stop/go road blocks along that section of the N7. It was a rather pretty section of road, though, alongside the Olifants River, with irrigation canals and vineyards lining it almost all the way.

Eventually, we were pleased to turn off the national road and to head up the very scenic Vanrhynsdorp Pass. Stopping at the top for a coffee break we looked down on the extensive plains and their network of waterways. We could also see many of the strange heuweltjies that are found in this part of our country. Fossilised termite mounts, these strange fairy rings are thousands of years old.

Nieuwoudtville was as peaceful, friendly and attractive as we remembered it. And the butchery was as good as ever. We popped in there to buy a couple of delicious steaks for supper that night then we headed off to see the garden. On a previous visit we had taken a drive out to the amazing quiver tree forest then on to Loeriesfontein to see the windpump museum there. Both these attractions are worth seeing but if your time is limited, I recommend you give them a miss and pay a visit to the Hantam National Botanical Garden.

Originally Glenlyon Farm, the property was bought by Sanbi in 2007 and transformed in the institute’s ninth national botanical garden. Unlike the others it is not a cultivated garden as such but has been created to protect the natural biodiversity. There are quite a few walking trails through fields of flowers of every colour and shade. When we were there it was absolutely exquisite.

We also met one of the resident botanists, a young man who had been involved in the establishment of the garden. He was so enthusiastic and generous with his knowledge and the information we gleaned from talking to him made our visit to the garden even more interesting.

After leaving Nieuwoudtville we headed on, into the heart of the Karoo. Reaching Calvinia we found it to be neat and pretty, a pleasant town ringed by mountains. After booking into the quaint but comfortable caravan park, right in the centre of Calvinia, we headed off to explore this iconic Karoo town.

Situated alongside the Oorlogskloof River, at the foot of the Hantam Mountains, Calvinia was founded in 1851 and named after Jean Calvin. There were plenty of lovely old buildings to see including the oldest structure in the town, built around 1820 and recently resurrected as the Blue Naartjie Guest House. According to Chris Schoeman’s ‘The Historical Karoo’ (Zebra Press) its walls are 60cm to 90cm thick and the ceiling, 5m high.

What really gave us a feel for the town was a visit to the absolutely fascinating Calvinia Museum, housed in a striking Art Deco building that was formerly the town’s synagogue.

The rather eclectic mix of exhibits, including the imposing Class 24 steam locomotive in the garden, was like a patchwork quilt made up of scraps of history that, seen as a whole told the fascinating story of the town. It paid tribute to some of its more famous children, including the Lombard quadruplets, born in 1951.

There was also information about the first baby born in the Calvinia hospital who grew up and became a famous ballet and Spanish dancer and dance teacher and about the town’s rugby playing reverent, former Springbok George Daneel.

A sadder story was that of Abraham Esau, a blacksmith and transport driver and an erudite man who spearheaded the coloured resistance to the Boer commandos during the Anglo-Boer War. After the boer forces overpowered the town, he was flogged for not disclosing the location of arms caches then taken out of town and executed. Reading his sad story made me realise once again how most our South Africa’s towns had been affected by the terrible war.

A whole section of the museum was given over to a display of sheep farming, in many respects the life blood of the Karoo. I know it sounds a bit boring but in reality it was quite fascinating and gave us a deeper understanding of the region and this important industry.

We spent a peaceful night in the hospitable little town then packed up early, looking forward to what we thought might well be a highlight of our journey. The Tankwa Karoo National Park didn’t disappoint.