Grootvadersbosch is a historic farm in the

Overberg __NOTOC__ Overberg is a region in South Africa to the east of Cape Town beyond the Hottentots-Holland mountains. It lies along the Western Cape Province's south coast between the Cape Peninsula and the region known as the Garden Route in the e ...

, and the surrounding area is currently a nature reserve in the southern portion of the Boosmansbos Wilderness Area, in

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Location

Grootvadersbosch is in the foothills of the

Langeberg The Langeberg Range is a mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its highest peak is Keeromsberg at 2,072 m that lies 15 km northeast of the town of Worcester. Some of the highest peaks of the range are located just ...

, east of Oude Post and the

Tradouws Pass Tradouw Pass is a pass through the Langeberg mountain range in South Africa. It is part of the R324 and is the main road between Swellendam and Barrydale in the Western Cape. History In 1868, the Cape administration decided to build a road t ...

Barrydale Barrydale is a village on the border of the Overberg and Klein Karoo regions of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. It was named after Joseph Barry, a merchant of the 19th century. It is situated at the northern end of the Tradouws Pass wh ...

and north of the gravel road from

Swellendam Swellendam () is the third oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town and Stellenbosch), a town with 17,537 inhabitants situated in the Western Cape province. The town has over 50 provincial heritage sites, most of them buildings of Cape D ...

over the

Buffeljags River Buffeljagsriver (Afrikaans for "buffalo hunt") is a river that originates where two other rivers meet, one being the Grootvadersbos River (Afrikaans for ''Grandfather's woods'') and the other the Tradou River. The confluence is just east of a sma ...

Suurbraak Suurbraak is a settlement in Overberg District Municipality in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The village was established in 1812, when the London Missionary Society established a mission station to serve the Attaqua Khoikhoi ...

and

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

. Both the Slang River (not the one in

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...

) and the Duiwenhoks River spring from the region.

Nature reserve

Grootvadersbosch is the largest remaining native forest in the Langeberg. Both a foot trail and a

mountain bike A mountain bike (MTB) or mountain bicycle is a bicycle designed for off-road cycling (''mountain biking''). Mountain bikes share some similarities with other bicycles, but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in r ...

trail have been developed in the reserve.

Animal life

The

Cape bushbuck The Cape bushbuck (''Tragelaphus sylvaticus''), also known as imbabala is a common, medium-sized bushland-dwelling, and a widespread species of antelope in sub-Saharan Africa. It is found in a wide range of habitats, such as rain forests, montane ...

was first seen by European scientists in this forest in 1776, when the Swede

Anders Sparrman Anders Sparrman (27 February 1748 – 9 August 1820) was a Swedish naturalist, abolitionist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Biography left, Miniature of Sparrman at the time of his travels with James Cook. By unknown artist. Born in Tensta ...

visited. After searching for more than 50 years, herpetologist John D. Visser finally found eggs of the

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

species known as the Eastern ghost frog (''Heleophyryne orientalis'') here. The vulnerable Grootvadersbosch dwarf chameleon ('' Bradypodion venustum'') is endemic to its forested region.

History

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

soldiers began cutting trees in this forest early on.

Trekboer The Trekboers ( ) were nomadic pastoralists descended from mostly Dutch colonists on the frontiers of the Dutch Cape Colony in Southern Africa. The Trekboers began migrating into the interior from the areas surrounding what is now Cape Town, su ...

s settled in the area, and in 1724 Roelof Olofsz founded Grootvadersbosch farm. Later, it would be owned by Jacobus Steyn. In 1744,

Dutch Cape Colony The Cape of Good Hope () was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) supplystation in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original supply station and the successive states that the area was ...

Governor

Hendrik Swellengrebel Hendrik Swellengrebel (Cape Town, 20 September 1700 – Utrecht, 26 December 1760) was the first and only Dutch East India Company governor of the Dutch Cape Colony who was born in the Cape. Life Swellengrebel was governor from 14 April 173 ...

founded as school here where Abraham Schietekat worked as a teacher and ministered to the local Boers. Benjamin Moodie purchased the farm in 1817, and the Moodie family cradle in

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

would become one of the leading farms in the Overberg. It supplied

wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

, and

brandy Brandy is a liquor produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35–60% alcohol by volume (70–120 US proof) and is typically consumed as an after-dinner digestif. Some brandies are aged in wooden casks. Others are coloured ...

. The farm was visited by several famous people over the years: the botanists

Carl Peter Thunberg Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a Sweden, Swedish Natural history, naturalist and an Apostles of Linnaeus, "apostle" of Carl Linnaeus ...

and

Francis Masson Francis Masson (August 1741 – 23 December 1805) was a Scotland, Scottish botanist and gardener, and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Kew Gardens’ first Botanical expedition, plant hunter. Life Masson was born in Aberdeen. In the 1760s, he w ...

in 1772, traveler and explorer François Levaillant in 1782, the missionary botanist

James Backhouse :''See alsfor two other James Backhouse botanists and nursery owners of York.'' James Backhouse (8 July 1794 – 20 January 1869) was a botanist and missionary for the Quaker Church body, church in Australia. His son, also James Backhouse (bota ...

, and the missionary John Philip in 1830.

References

Bibliography

* Burrows, Edmund H.: ''Overberg Outspan: A chronicle of people and places in the south western districts of the Cape''. Swelllendam: Swellendam Trust, 1988. {{ISBN, 0-620-12930-1

External links

Official website
Nature reserves in South Africa