SFT #3: Holey Oak!
The cache, a camo-taped preform tube, is the 3rd of eight hidden on this anticlockwise 3km trail which goes around and through the vineyards of this historic farm (see Map in Gallery).
Opening hours: 09:00 – 18:00 daily.
Note: the cache is not at the given coordinates which are for the northern corner of the trail where it meets the golf course. To find the cache coordinates you will need to click on the image below . . . !
From #2 turn NW up the wide jeep track between the vines, past the winemaker's cottage and the car park of the hotel/restaurant complex to the golf course where at the given coordinates turn SW along the edge of the course to the cache location.
(Continued from #2) >>> She wrote ‘At the dawning of the Cape, the swans rejoined, feeding in paradise at the foot of the Steenberg Mountains’ having mistaken the indigenous spur-winged geese, resident on Steenberg, for swans!
Steenberg means ‘Stone Mountain’ but the original name of the farm was ‘Swaaneweide’ – ‘Feeding Place of Swans’.
Catharina came from Lübeck, Germany as a 22 year old indomitable young widow having stowed away on board a Cape-bound sailing ship, disguised as a man. After the perilous journey she landing in 1662 only 10 years after the first Commander of the Cape, Jan van Riebeeck.
Life was not easy in those days, and she soon realised this was no place for a lone widow and that she would need another husband in order to survive in the tough Cape environment of that time. It was no land of milk and honey, but a fierce, wild place with rulings to match. Keel hauling, hangings, lashings and brandings were normal occurrences and it was well before any recognition of women’s rights >>> (continues with #4)
Many thanks to Farm Manager Johann de Swardt for kind permission to place the cache.