Sillery trail

Today we walked through the leafy trail from Sillery up to what used to be the Silverhurst farm, now an exclusive gated estate with mansions and manicured lawns where previously stretched farmland. In my extreme youth, we used to go to the Christmas parties at Silverhurst, where straw lay strewn around the barn, and Father Christmas arrived on a tractor with a huge sack over his shoulder with the simplest, but so appreciated gifts for us wide-eyed children. Fireworks would be lit and an enchanting fairy would magically appear through the sparklers. Something never to be forgotten.
We started at Sillery and wound our way up the flat trail leading up towards the oldest dam in the Cape. A sign of the severity of the drought is that it is completely dried up, with the smallest of muddy puddles where two large dogs were frolicking. Nobody recalled ever having seen it empty, so a sobering sight.
This is definitely the flattest walk I have done with the group and it was very leisurely on a warm day, with no wind in the Constantia valley, but a fierce southeaster blasting the rest of the Peninsula, as happens in Cape Town! The shade was provided by ancient oaks, which are currently shedding their acorns, and the ground was littered with them - a few pigs wouldn't have gone amiss! Huge fig trees have established themselves along the banks of the water courses that are currently dry, and pear trees also abound. Doubtless they were seeded by bird droppings. There are thickets of small bamboo and other foreign vegetation, but none of it ugly and probably providing shelter for a multitude of small mammals, snakes, etc. They have to live somewhere!
After about an hour we came to the end of the trail, where a fence boldly proclaimed Private Property, etc. And so we parked ourselves against the railings of Silverhurst Estate on one side, facing a jungle of unkempt grounds on which converted stables now housed the staff of some nearby property. Deep in this jungle, the satellite signal is poor, and a plan has been made with a long cord from tree to tree, with a large dish fixed to the trunk of the one that apparently got the best signal! Necessity is the mother of invention.
A nice gentle walk, with fresh figs for sale along the way, and a stall of Constantia hanepoot grapes. What more could one ask after a morning's exercise?