South Africa - Capetown's District 6 and Kirstenbosch Gardens (day 1)

by Debbie Ross Womens Travel Network founder

Today we discovered the highlights of this fabulous city. We started at Cape Town’s Castle of Good Hope. It’s a cool, foggy, rainy day. Table Mountain willl have to wait till tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will clear but for now we’ve yet to see the mountain. We arrived at the castle just in time to watch them fire the cannon. It might be small but the sound is mightly. We continued inside the castle to view some fabulous artwork, hand crafted cabinets and a collection of chinese and dutch artifacts that are centuries old. The torrture chamber was a dark miserable dungeon. There were many artifacts from the dutch and british army; guns, swords, uniforms,photos and paintings.

after our tour of the astle we took a short walk to the District 6 museum where we met Noor. He is one of the founders of the museum and one of the families affected by the governments decisions during apartheid to move the people out of Distritct 6.. Families were displaced and couples of mixed race were separated. it was a difficult time in the history of the south African people of colour and those that lived in District 6. The neighbourhood was demolished in the 1980’s and the families were forected to move 30 to 40 miles outside of the city. Many families were separated. Noor was very happy to share his story with of what life was like growing up in District 6 and how it changed the lives of his family and neighbours when the government foreced them out of their homes. The museum is a reminder of this proud neighbourhood of multicultural people. they kept the street signs in memory of this era.

Noor wrote a book about his memories of this time and was happy to sign the copies for us.

Next stop was a very colourful are of the city where the Malays settled. After a short stroll along the cobbled streets wer boareded the bus for a short drive to Kirstenbosh Garedns. It was raining when we arrived so we opted for a lesifurely lunch at the restaurant located iside the park. We were seatd near the cozy fireplace. The servers were entertainig, thye vcame to our tables and sang lovely songs and the food was fabulous. By the time we finished lunch the sun was peeking through the clouds.

. The setting aga After our delicious lunch we took a leisurely stroll through the magnifecnet Kristenbosch botanical gardens. The expansive grounds are filled with fabulous plants and trees set against a dramatic rock. The variety of bird life was a wonderful addition to the colourful and fragrant gardens.

This evening we celebrated the start of our journey with a welcome dinner at Gold Restaurant, an African favourite, complete with a presentation of traditional drumming. The food was amazing, th drummers dancers and singers very entertaining and the company fabulous. A great night was had by all.