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A mission station route has been established north of Cape Town, along the sparsely populated west coast. There the landscape varies between wild white sand beaches washed by icy Atlantic Ocean breakers, to the mystical Cape Folded Mountain ranges, to rolling croplands of canola, wheat and vineyards.In early spring, this dry land is often carpeted with short-lived but colourful flowers.
The principal mission stations along this route are Wupperthal, Mamre, Goedverwacht, Wittewater, Papendorp and Rietpoort. Further south are the pretty Moravian mission towns of Elim and Genadendal (Valley of Grace).
The best starting place for the Mission Route is at the Sendinggestig (Mission Association) Museum in Long Street, Cape Town. Here you can learn about the establishment and history of the mission movement in South Africa.
Wupperthal is one of the better-known mission towns, set in the remote Tra-Tra Valley in the other-worldly Cederberg mountains 70 km north of Cape Town. The town was founded in 1830 by the German Rhenish missionaries Johann Gottlieb Leipoldt (a shoemaker) and Baron Theobold von Wurmb. The shoe-making operation set up by Leipoldt is still going, producing hand-made leather velskoene (leather bush shoes). Other attractions include a rooibos tea factory (only operating in summer), a simple and beautiful church, donkey cart trips and traditional meals.
Mamre, an hour’s drive from Cape Town, was founded in 1701, and is one of the oldest settlements in the country. The mission complex (the church, parsonage, school, water mill, bakery, warehouse and stables) is set under oak trees, and the little gabled houses have quaintly coloured doors and windows.
Goedverwacht, near Piketburg, began as a farm that a widowed farmer left to his freed slave, Maniesa of Bengal. When her last offspring died in 1888, it was sold to the Moravian Missionaries. It features a beautiful day hike through startling rock formations and the indigenous flowering fynbos.
At Papendorp, near Ebenhaeser mission station, traditional meals featuring ‘bokkoms’ (dried, salted mullet) can be arranged, and the local women produce exquisite embroidered linen.
Rietpoort, just south of Bitterfontein, is famous for wild flowers in spring and a simple way of life. Most people near the town still use traditional clay ovens for baking and have no electricity or running water.
Further south of the Mission Route are two other remarkable places to visit. Genadendal, near the pretty town of Greyton, has an excellent museum, organic nursery and craft centre. Elim, near Cape Agulhas, is a town entirely owned by the Moravian Church and is remarkable for its rare wild flowers, its worldclass roof thatchers, its waterwheel (wheat is still ground there), and for having the only monument on South Africa that commemorates the freeing of the slaves in 1834.
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