The Great TREK - #31

August the 11^th – Our 7^th leg

Today I took my children to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens at the foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town for some learning, fun and exercise, as this is a massive 528 hectares in area.

a Bonsai tree at the entrance of the gardens

The garden is one of nine National Botanical Gardens covering five of South African's six different biomes, Kirstenbosch was founded in 1913 to preserve the country's unique flora. Furthermore, what makes the Gardens so famous worldwide is that (with minor exceptions), only indigenous plants are cultivated. 

It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.

The garden includes a large conservatory (The Botanical Society Conservatory) exhibiting plants from a number of different regions, including savanna, fynbos, karoo and others. 

Outdoors, the focus moves to plants native to the Cape region, highlighted by the spectacular collections of proteas.

Kirstenbosch enjoys great popularity with residents and visitors. From the gardens several trails lead off along and up the mountain slopes and these are much used by walkers and mountaineers.

The Centenary Tree Canopy Walkway is a new curved steel and timber bridge that winds and dips its way through and over the trees of the arboretum. Inspired by a snake skeleton, and informally called the "boomslang" (meaning tree snake), it is a low-impact sculptural raised walkway. 

 The view from the top of the walkway

 The Walkway takes the visitor from the forest floor into and through the trees and bursts out above the canopy, giving spectacular panoramic vistas of the surrounding mountains, Garden and Cape Flats.

This walkway is 130m long, narrow and slender, with a few wider view-point areas, and lightly snakes its way through the canopy, in a discreet, almost invisible way. The walkway is crescent-shaped and takes advantage of the sloping ground; it touches the forest floor in two places, and raises visitors to 12m above ground. It is more than just a traditional boardwalk - like a snake, it winds and dips.

We were lucky enough as this walkway opened in May of 2014.

Kirstenbosch enjoys a Mediterranean climate, with a long, hot, dry summer (November-March) and a short, cool, rainy winter (June-August). 

As we went in August, the temperature was great with a beautiful day al round.

 The King Protea