Kleinplaas Dam Road

Name: Kleinplaas Dam Road
Brand: VoiceMap
SKU: 273
Price: 1.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 3.0 (1 reviews)
Author: Vicky

(1 review)

Cape Town audio tour: Kleinplaas Dam Road

This is a 1.2mi walking tour

It takes an average of 20 mins to complete.

Cape Town

South Africa

$1.99

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About the Tour

A walk to Kleinplaas Dam along an old jeep track reveals some of the Cape Floristic Region's hidden tales. Explore the stone cottage ruins amidst the fynbos and discover how the indigenous Bontebok narrowly evaded extinction.

Tour Producer

Vicky Truter

1 tour

Mountain wanderer and lover of stories

Preview Location

Location 4

Cape Floristic Region

Now that you’ve been walking for some time, you’ve had a chance to absorb the landscape around you. Colourful, isn’t in? Actually, right now, you’re in one of the world’s great centres of terrestrial biodiversity. It’s called the Cape Floristic Region.

The region is made u... Now that you’ve been walking for some time, you’ve had a chance to absorb the landscape around you. Colourful, isn’t in? Actually, right now, you’re in one of the world’s great centres of terrestrial biodiversity. It’s called the Cape Floristic Region.

The region is made up of various nature reserves, national parks, and wilderness areas. It stretches from the Cape Peninsula all the way to the Eastern Cape. It covers about 78 and a half thousand square kilometres. Let me try to put that into perspective: it's a meagre 0.5% of the whole area of Africa. But what makes this area so special is that it is home to almost 20% of the entire continent’s flora. The region is actually also known as a floral kingdom. And, it’s the only one of its kind that is situated in the borders of a single country.

The Cape's floral kingdom is most famous for its diversity of fynbos vegetation. Fynbos is incredibly well-known for its reproductive strategies and adaptability. Take a moment to look at some of the shrubs near where you’re walking. Almost all of these plants are a kind of fynbos. They come in different sizes, different shapes, and different colours. Mostly, they're different kinds of small, coarse bushes or shrubs. Sometimes they even look more like grasses. There are thousands of species. Maybe you are familiar with a plant called the Protea? It’s South Africa’s national flower, and it happens to also be a kind of fynbos.

Fynbos accounts for something like 80% of this region’s plant-life. Table Mountain alone is home to more than 2000 different kinds. Many species exist only in a radius of a few hectares. So, some of the species that you can see right now might not even grow anywhere else in the area, nevermind anywhere else in the world!

You can imagine how the Cape Floristic Region is the subject of much discussion, especially for conservationists and biological scientists. In fact, the region has proved so valuable to science, that it is a Unesco World Heritage site. And, when you put it like that, it starts to seem like quite a lucky thing that you even get to visit.

The region is so big and many parts of it are unprotected, so its survival is threatened. Some of the more serious dangers include agricultural development, land degradation, and the spread of invasive alien plants.

For me, the most interesting thing about fynbos is how it has adapted to periodic fires. But I’ll talk more about this a little later on.

For now, just keep walking. Read More

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Getting There

Route Overview

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Start location
Kleinplaas Dam Rd, Simon's Town, Cape Town, 7995, South Africa
Total distance

2km
Final location
Kleinplaas Dam Rd, Simon's Town, Cape Town, 7995, South Africa
Distance back to start location

1km

Directions to Starting Point

By train:
Take the Cape Town Metrorail train to Simon's Town. You'll have to walk about 800m back along Main Road (back the way the train came). Turn left onto Redhill Road (M66).

By car:
Either take the M3 and Oukaapseweg, or take the M5 to get to Main Road. Drive south, towards Simon's Town. Turn right onto Redhill Road (M66).

Once you are on Redhill Road, the road zig-zags up the hill. Take the first tarred road to the right. The start of the walk is at the parking lot, where you can find a sign that says "Kleinplaas Dam".

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Tips

Places to stop along the way

Stone Cottage Ruins, Kleinplaas Dam

Best time of day

Anytime of day. It can get quite windy at all times of the day, so a beanie or a headscarf could be useful. You can even do this walk in the moonlight, although it is strongly recommended that you do so in a group.

Precautions

WARNING: There have been a number of incidents in the area lately. Be mindful of your surroundings, and don't go alone.

Keep an eye on your belongings. Please don't litter or leave burning cigarette butts behind you.

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“This app has become my go-to app for audio tours. I pretty much use it for every trip and it works wonderfully. I highly recommend VoiceMap for travelers to truly experience cities.”

App Store Review

“Great app. walk around at your own pace, stop where you want, move on or speed up when you want. Read the script before you go or during the commentary, speed it up or replay it. Repeat the tour whenever you like.”

Google Play Store

Questions and Reviews

3 / 5

1 Ratings

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