The Outeniqua Country Hop

One could be for­given for think­ing that the ‘coun­try hop’ is some sort of quaint rural dance, but the Outeniqua coun­try hop in the Garden Route is a tour­ist route, ini­ti­ated by a group of local women to help put local trade in and around George on the map. The clever play on the term ‘hop’ was inspired by the abund­ance of hops grow­ing in the area, a plant used in the man­u­fac­tur­ing of beer, and unique to this region in South Africa.

We picked up signs for the Hop on the R404, as we drove out of George. With two young boys in tow, I was taken with the icon of the tractor, which accom­pan­ies the hop signs, since a tractor ride in any guise would provide my boys with a lot of excite­ment! The icon how­ever appeared to be more of a sym­bol than a real­ity, although clearly much of the beau­ti­ful scenery through which one passes is work­ing farmland.

Our first stop was the Red Berry straw­berry farm, which is loc­ated in an area called Geelhoutboom. Having been straw­berry pick­ing in the greater Cape Town and sur­rounds, I did not think that this was an activ­ity in which we would par­take. However my six-year-old was clearly keen and so he and his father, tub in hand, (they meas­ure by tub size rather than mass here) popped off in search of those red berries.

My younger son was quickly attrac­ted to the lovely play­ground activ­it­ies and we man­aged to fill the pick­ing time quite eas­ily, by explor­ing jungle gyms and feed­ing the res­id­ent bun­nies. What makes this straw­berry farm dif­fer­ent is its won­der­ful res­taur­ant and garden area, which Cape Town farms seem to lack, and a place to munch those hard picked straw­ber­ries. I noted that many elec­ted to order scones and cream to accom­pany their pick­ings! The shop also boasts a num­ber of straw­berry related products from jams to yoghurts, coulis and juices.

Father and son returned very pleased with their har­vest and the straw­ber­ries were indeed as tasty as they looked! The loc­a­tion def­in­itely filled up towards lunch time and it is clearly a pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tion for loc­als and tour­ists alike. Visiting on a Friday we noticed pre­par­a­tions under­way for a week­end straw­berry fest­ival. However given the size of mar­quees and anti­cip­ated activ­ity, I was glad that we had vis­ited on a less fren­etic day!

On our way out I noted that we could also visit a mush­room farm, which I am sure would have provided an inter­est­ing insight into the growth of mush­rooms, should I have been more par­tial to the taste of these little fungi!

Our next stop was the Silver Lily cheese farm, a Dutch style farm situ­ated on the Geelhoutboom road. A tour was on the go for the res­id­ent school chil­dren, which includes the pro­cess of cheese mak­ing, but we popped around the back to the tast­ing room, to see what was on offer.

Cheese tast­ing can be accom­pan­ied by a glass of wine, and a vari­ety of mainly hard cheeses is on offer, includ­ing a num­ber of herb, gar­lic and smoked vari­et­ies. The cheeses are cer­tainly not cheap, but tasty, and it is encour­aging to sup­port a local supplier.

The Outeniqua Hop begins in Herold’s Bay, a rather upmar­ket sea­side cove — if prop­erty prices were any­thing to go by — and passes through Geelhoutboom, the loc­a­tion of the straw­berry and cheese farms, to ascend the Montagu Pass, to the little vil­lage of Herold, which boasts its own wine farm.

(There’s a beau­ti­ful map by the way on http://www.outeniquacountryhop.co.za)

Hops is abund­ant on the route and grows in creeper form, scram­bling up rather com­plex string struc­tures. The creep­ers grow at an alarm­ing rate of 100 mm a day and the cones are har­ves­ted dur­ing February and March.

I sus­pect that dur­ing this time, tract­ors would be in abundance!

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