The Table Bay hotel, located on Cape Town’s cosmopolitan
Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, has created a partnership with Reclaim
Camissa, a local non-profit Trust, to offer guests a new authentic experience
to discover the history of Cape Town and the surrounding area. Table Bay hotel
guests are invited to explore the origins of the waters that stretch between
Robben Island and Table Mountain, both world UNESCO Heritage sites. The 1.5 hour Camissa Walk - revealing the
complex history of Cape Town – will end at The Table Bay’s exclusive Camissa
restaurant where guests are invited to sample an exquisite South African-
inspired meal.
Sherwin Banda, General Manager at the Table Bay
Hotel says:
“Camissa –
‘the place of sweet waters’ is the original Khoi name for Cape Town and the
reason we named our latest restaurant.
We also wanted to give our guests the opportunity to discover Cape
Town’s cultural and environmental heritage and to learn more about the role of
water in the city landscape, linking mountain to sea, past to future and people
to the environment.”
During the Camissa Walk, guests will follow the
water’s course, from the mountain, through mills, wash houses where slaves took
the population’s laundry, the shrines of local saints and other forgotten
landmarks to discover the earliest roots of the city of Cape Town. The walk begins uphill to discover De Grendel
- the Dutch word for the lock - from where the original main water supply into
the city was controlled, after the Dutch settlement. From there they will stop
en-route at the Lower Platterklip Waterfall, The Platteklip Dam and Mill, the
Wash Houses where legend tells us that Hafiz’s Magic Ring was found, and
eventually The Old Oranjezicht Farmstead, home to Cape Town’s first Mayor and
the site of the Stadsfontein. For the most adventurous, the tour can include an
additional experience that will allow guests to enter underground tunnels that
carries the old river to the moat of the Castle of Good Hope.
“For
centuries, Camissa was the life blood of the old city bowl, defining its
culture, history and even its urban layout.
Following the water’s course, the walk offers a fresh and eye-opening
perspective on the city,” comments Caron von Zeil, from Reclaim Camissa.
The tour will be guided by Caron von Zeil and has
been developed in conjunction with events and team building company, Fo8, which
leads the tunnel portion of the tour, providing gumboots, headlamps and other
necessary equipment.
The
experience, which includes the sweet water tour and the lunch at Camissa, is
available for all the Hotel Guests subject to availability. Price on request.
