Westridge Gardens: Township Oasis
The cache, a small black-taped plastic tube, is hidden in an OAO (obvious arboreal orifice!).
To reach the cache location:
Take the R310 (Baden Powell Drive, which runs east from Muizenberg along the False Bay coast up and then north-east up to the junction with the M12 near Sunbury) as far as the junction @ S34 04.251 E18 36.878 which is the access link for the M7.
Turn south here and at the T-junction (after 100m) turn right onto the M7. Follow this for 3km as far as the junction @ S34 03.360 E18 35.428 - turn right here onto Westpoort Drive.
Follow this for 1.5km and @ S34 03.039 E18 36.285 turn left onto De Duin Avenue. Follow this for 1km to the junction with Morgenster Rd @ S34 02.531 E18 36.063. Turn left here and after 400m park on the road side adjacent to the small entrance gate @ S34 02.531 E18 36.063.
The park is open from 07h00-19h00 during summer and 08h00-19h00 during winter.
I was pleasantly surprised when introduced to this substantial and most pleasant green oasis in the midst of the otherwise dry & dusty Mitchell's Plain (with its reputation for gangsters/ violent crime and drug addiction) whilst doing the cache GC6B7RG Westridge Community Gardens. So, on the basis of one good cache deserves another and to provide a further incentive for cachers to visit, I thought it would be a good idea to place another cache here.
To add a little to the info provided in the initial cache . . .
Conceived of as a 'model township' by the apartheid government, Mitchell's Plain was built during the 1970s to provide housing for coloured victims of forced removals due to the implementation of the Group Areas Act. Though is no longer officially a 'coloured township', the vast majority of the residents are still coloured. It has an estimated population of 700,000 (different sources put the population at anywhere between 290,000-1.5 million) - but in any case it is one of the largest townships in the country. Residents have overcome many of the challenges they have faced and made this township 'a vibrant and exciting place' with around 60 schools, 5 post offices, and three major precincts (Town Centre, Westgate Mall and Liberty Promenade Mall). See here for more information.
Community concerts and festive programmes are held at the Westridge Gardens annually, including the popular summertime Concerts in the Park and the Mitchells Plain Festival which was first staged in 2009 to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Mitchell’s Plain.
The inaugural event was attended by President Jacob Zuma, Premier Helen Zille, various cabinet ministers, Directors General and more than 15,000 people. The yearly festival provides positive publicity and over 200 part-time jobs for the area and nearby Khayelitsha.
See here for a short video of Zuma opening the 2013 festival and here for some festival vibes.
At the official opening of the Rose Garden on 19 April, 2011, a member of the Cape Town Executive Mayoral Committee stated that Westridge Gardens was a model for transformation of a public park and that the beautiful, peaceful, well-kept and well utilised garden can be regarded as a bench-mark for future park improvement projects.