Stellenbosch is hugely attractive, whether you’re exploring the city or the landscape around it
A clear morning anywhere in the Cape Winelands is mesmerisingly beautiful and, when you’ve arrived at your accommodation in the dark and your first sense of a place is revealed in perfect golden light, it’s like the place is unashamedly showing off. Such is the case when opening the blinds of Avemore Rare Gem, a converted cellar in a large manor house on an estate called Le Verger in the beautiful Devon Valley.
The self-catering apartment has the thick walls of a former wine storage area, which regulates the temperature and sound wonderfully. Arguably, it’s the holes in those walls – the windows in the bedroom and the kitchen – that are the best feature, allowing views first over a shared pool and then the slopes on the opposite side of the valley, with the Hottentots-Holland Mountains looming dramatically in the background.
Breakfasting around the pool facing that view is pretty much mandatory, but if you can tear yourself away from the visuals for a walk, Le Verger offers a range of sights and sounds in a compact space. Green lawns are patrolled by egrets and hadedas at opposite ends of the scale in both colour and personality (when was the last time you yelled at an egret to “keep it down!”?).
Alongside the foliage-fringed driveway is a lake, home to a number of other birds and, judging by the sounds, a large frog contingent. Grey squirrels meander in and out of every wooded border, glancing at you to establish your intent and then attending to their food intake needs with hyperactive intensity. An olive plantation transports you briefly to the Mediterranean before a massive banyan fig tree evokes the tropics. All the while, other accommodation options, for couples, families and groups, appear and blend into the landscaping, providing a feeling of a safe, peaceful little country community.
It’s a cosmopolitan crowd too. Around the pool, there are couples from different countries lying on sun loungers and a gentleman – from another country – on the verandah above raising his coffee cup in greeting. It’s a very different tone to a hotel stay, with everyone self-sufficient and on their own timetable, as happy to swap recommendations as they are to hide in their private retreats.
Streets with stories
The Devon Valley, whichever direction you’re heading, is a scenic drive. The tasting room and restaurant at JC Le Roux occupy one end, with the historic town of Stellenbosch at the other extreme. Midweek, the latter is unexpectedly (for a visitor) busy, its energetic buzz reflected in the agreeable challenge of finding parking on the central streets. All of that area is easily walkable and navigable – if you get lost, simply look up the slope occasionally and orientate yourself using the spire of the imposing Moederkerk.
Make sure you’re hungry when visiting. There is a literally mouthwatering array of eateries, from coffee shops serving light meals to magnificent fine-dining institutions and all points in between. It’s bewildering to try to work out how so many options survive, as it’s possible to discover a spot with incredible appeal between seeing the sign for and reaching the door of a different venue. And given how Stellenbosch’s architecture reflects its history, there are often more common chain outlets given vintage, storied ambience by their surroundings.
Comfortable, modern Avemore Mareba Court No 9, between celebrated Dorp Street and the clear-flowing Eerste River, which marks the boundary between the centre of town and the suburbs, is within easy walking distance of most of the more popular attractions.
Just 500m away is Oom Samie Se Winkel, a trading store that has occupied the same building and served more or less the same purpose for over 120 years. Today, there are more contemporary stock items, but the shop still has an outlandish array of supplies, including bokkoms (salted, dried mullet; bit of a whiff), antiques, taxidermy as decor, amusing signs and the odd chandelier, all in a cramped space. There are also idiosyncratic food choices, like foot-long koeksusters, which have stood the test of time. It’s impossible to ignore the thought that stock-take here must be a nightmare, but it’s an immersive browsing experience and an opportunity to buy something that will represent your memories here once you get home.
Partnerships to enrich the future
Further afield, over the hill at the far end of the Devon Valley and along the Bottelary Road (which overlaps the original wagon trail from Cape Town to Stellenbosch), conservation becomes a central theme. Developers and their projects are a constant threat to indigenous vegetation here, but the Bottelary Hills Renosterveld Conservancy is making a notable difference in ensuring that the area retains many of its original ecosystems and habitats.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the conservancy is the network of partnerships it’s engendered. Running a farm is a brutally difficult business and yet 55 private landowners in and around the Bottelary Hills have committed to conserving endangered Renosterveld on part of their land – including the hard work of clearing alien vegetation, maintaining hiking and mountain biking trails and more – showing unusual foresight and altruism for businesspeople (even if many did grow up in the area). Some have even had their protected areas declared as official nature reserves, meaning protection in perpetuity, regardless of what happens after they’re gone.
The properties involved in the scheme differ wildly. Hazendal is a sprawling, mostly modern campus with a par-three 18-hole golf course, an epic putt-putt area and a driving range, a boutique hotel, a space-age children’s play and learning area, multiple restaurants and an impossibly elegant tasting space, all integrated into one of the oldest estates in the region.
The owner’s car collection, displayed with plaques explaining the vehicles’ providence, includes a line of vintage Rolls Royces and a Bentley, a measure of the budget behind the estate and the many programmes it has in place to support the local community.
A couple of minutes away, Mooiplaas is the antithesis of all that modernism – old, cultured and traditional. It still looks like a working farm of its kind would have a century or more ago, with a quiet mood and reserved pace that makes it feel serene. Tielman Roos, the chairman of the conservancy, grew up in the stately Mooiplaas manor house. He notes that the bulk of the wood inside is yellowwood because it was cheap to bring in from Knysna at the time, unlike that swanky Oregon pine. He also shows off a magnificent carved frieze, showing off the history of the Dutch settlers in what looks like teak. It’s incredible work, the kind of thing that might be a museum centrepiece one day.
As he hosts a tasting of his delicious wines, Roos notes, “The sun shines on everyone. We all get to benefit and we all get to give something back.” It’s an attitude that will keep the conservancy spectacular, friendly and undeniably worth visiting.
Text and photography | Bruce Dennill
For more information or to book a stay, go to avemore.co.za and bottelaryconservancy.co.za.
