It’s that time of year again, SPRING! As South Africans we love the 1st of September as it marks the change in the season. Nowhere in South Africa is more spectacular than the Northern and Western Cape, where the grey winter skies get forgotten very quickly and the semi-arid plains turn into carpets of flower from the insignificant small plants that no-one notices until they show their beautiful colours. This is the time of the annual pilgrimage for many visitors and locals up the coast to take in this wonder of nature.
For the simple choice of getting some flower power, you can start at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, where you can be taken on a daily walk that is led by Botanical Society volunteers to show and tell you about flowers around this amazing local treasure. Harold Porter National Botanical Garden is also worth the 1,5-hour trip to the coastal Fynbos region in Betty’s Bay to view the flower and amber pool waterfall.
A little further out of Cape Town up the West Coast is Darling, the flower of the West Coast due to the abundance of natural wild flowers. Darling Wildflower society holds an annual event – Darling Wildflower Show 16-18 September 2016, held at the Golf Club with a large landscaped hall of Indigenous flowers. Visitors will also be able to buy plants, as well as enjoy the day out with Music and food stalls.
120km’s up the West Coast is Hope Field, where you can spot the carpets of wild flower enjoying the sun shine. The West Coast National Park is also the place for a picnic with the flowers and the blue waters of the Langebaan lagoon. For pollinators and propagators that keep this Floral kingdom alive you have to visit Clan William.
Visitors to Cape town could actually take a week and drive a flower route up the west coast through the Swartland, Bergrivier, Cedarberg to the Namaqua National Park where you will find the riches bulb flora in the world along with rock formations and quiver trees, blue skies and amazing rolling veld of colourful flowers.
For the West Coast flower update.
Map to the flowers (pdf)
