Nostalgia: Brunette Traditional Cache

Nostalgia:  Ancient Greek, from nostos, “a return home” and algos, “pain, suffering”, so literally referring to one’s anguish to return home.

This cache will take you through the streets of Helderberg Estate, a suburb of Somerset West, and close to Brunette Suikerbossie’s childhood home.

Start your cache trip by turning into Harewood Avenue. This beautiful oak-lined avenue was the original entrance road to the farm Bakkerskloof (sometimes also called Bakkershoogte).

The farm originally belonged to Christian Gunter, a German-born soldier turned tailor and later farmer who came to South Africa in 1724. He received Bakkerskloof from the V.O.C. as payment in 1784. Over time, the farm passed to many different owners, including Antonie Fick, Andries Conterman and former Cape Town mayor, David Christiaan de Waal who had purchased it in 1868 and was responsible for planting the oak trees. While a section of the farm was sold to Helderberg College c.1926, the remainder of Bakkerskloof was acquired by the Rupert Family. Most of the original grounds were eventually turned into residential property (known today as Helderberg Estate), with only about 4.8ha, including the homestead which dates back to 1800, resold as farming land.

Once you reach the old homestead gate, turn left into Companje Road and continue up the slopes of Helderberg Mountain. Note the beautiful poplar forest with its natural stream to your left. This forest is where GZ was originally intended to be. This plan was however, unexpectedly thwarted by the final waypoint of another cache...

Cross Rupert Avenue (named for Dr Anton Rupert) and turn right into Waveren Avenue. You will find Brunette’s childhood home somewhere along there. As you near the final coordinates, you will see the lush green pastures of Helderberg College on your right and the remnants of what used to be a major international protea export company further up the slopes and if you look closely, you might even still see some of the damage of the devastating 2011 fire that had raged along the slopes of Helderberg Mountain.

Once you have found the treasure, enjoy the view and take a moment to ponder the following:

It is easy to define a house - a permanent structure with four walls, doors, windows and a roof.  However, it is much harder to define one’s home...

We moved into the neighbourhood in 1981.  Back then there were few houses, big open fields, huge pine trees, gravel roads and no street lights.  Today it is a densely populated, exclusive suburb with high security walls and fences, big houses, pools and established gardens.

But, there is so much more:  the memories!  How can one ever even try to give true reflection to all the family meals filled with laughter, tears, arguments and stories, the slippy-slide birthday parties in the backyard, the tree houses built, the sleepovers and movie nights spend with friends, Christmases involuntarily filled with family plonking down from the Transvaal, bomber-dives into the pool, family pets buried in the garden, tennis matches against the garage door, picking the first rose of the season to give to a mother on her birthday, Grandparents’ tales from days gone by, creating a mess in Dad’s garage, driving lessons up and down the hilly streets, bicycle crashes, irrational Creepy Crawly-phobias...

My parents may be selling our childhood house, but it is just a structure; it is these memories that made the four walls and its roof a HOME.