Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

With the weather in Cape Town showing us its best side, I couldn't pass up the chance to spend a few hours wandering through the gardens of Kirstenbosch, which celebrates its centenary this year. It's a place that brings back memories of my youth, when I hunted tigers amongst the trunks and fronds of the giant wild strelitzias that grow in the middle of the sloping lawns near the big fish pond. It was a magical place for small children who were dwarfed by these immense tropical plants and you could play hide and seek in the little forest, all the time imagining jungle beasts lurking nearby. I'm sure the children today still play amongst the now much expanded 'forest', but nowadays I prefer to stroll up the skilfully cobbled paths leading up to the slopes where the proteas and ericas grow, and particularly the aloes, which are starting to come into bloom, promising an awe-inspiring display of orange against the bluest of skies in the next few months.

It's a good idea to go every few months at least, so that you can see the different species as they come into flower as each season progresses. Unfortunately the cost of enjoying these magnificent and world-famous gardens does not come cheap and I would imagine that the attraction for picnickers with large families will be on the wane, and that may not be a bad thing, as the best part of sitting on a bench in Kirstenbosch is being able to just take in the silence, interrupted only by the calling of birds as they forage for berries in the trees, or a darting squirrel as it swishes through the branches of ancient oaks.

There are many trees of impressive girth and soaring trunks which are marked with badges confirming their centenarian status, and of course there remains a portion of the almond hedge that was planted by Jan van Riebeek after he landed at the Tavern of the Seas in 1652. My mother, who is in her 80s, can remember seeing specific trees grow over the years from the time she was a little girl, as can my father, no doubt, for these gardens have been at the heart of Cape Town's horticultural history since inception.

The restorative properties of lying on the grass in the shade of ancient trees with gnarled and twisted trunks leading your eyes up to the canopy of multi-hued greenery is remarkable. I hope it will still be the same in another 100 years.