Never quite so happy as when in Greyton

Greyton

There are a couple of things you don't real­ise at first about Greyton by view­ing it on a map. One is that the quaint town is at the end of a road, it is not a thor­ough­fare (so no trundling trucks at mid­night), and the other is that it is undeni­ably one of the most beau­ti­ful towns in the Western Cape. I say this unreservedly.

Greyton is a quaint little English-style vil­lage just bey­ond the mis­sion town of Genadendal, on the east side of the Theewaterskloof dam, and on the other side of the Riviersonderend moun­tain range from McGregor. Actually, there is a hike you can do through the beau­ti­ful range of moun­tains from one vil­lage to the other, but con­sid­er­ing that on this occa­sion the moun­tain peaks were tipped with snow, we decided to give it a miss (to be hon­est, hik­ing across great swathes of moun­tain has never been my strong point and, con­sid­er­ing that the Boesmanskloof Trail is often done as a there-and-back hike, I was smil­ing prettily!).

I was, instead, per­fectly con­tent to curl up along­side a roar­ing fire with a book, whilst my other half and our ever-enthusiastic four-year old (where do they get that energy!) got to build taller and ever more chal­len­ging towers out of wooden blocks around me. And just as well pretty Blossom Cottage, nestled per­fectly on Ds Botha Street next door to the Vanilla Café and across from the Oak and Vigne Café, was well kit­ted out for the cold, as we had a fire going for most of the three days we were in town.

Photographs — Left: Vanilla Café / Right: Abbey Rose

But it did not rain for long, and des­pite the cold we were soon explor­ing out of doors up and down the oak lined garden filled streets of Greyton. Before long I was ambling from store to store, shop­ping bag over shoulder, intent on drink­ing in the 'this could be your life' feel of vil­lage liv­ing. I liked how it felt. I could do this. I began nudging my nose against the glass of estate agen­cies. But the prices of houses is another story.

On speak­ing to vil­la­gers, it becomes appar­ent that Greyton has long been 'dis­covered'. My instant love affair with the his­toric vil­lage is regret­tably not the first. People have been buy­ing up second homes here for at least the last dec­ade. And the con­sequence is that pokey little two-bedroom cot­tages now go for a cool R2.5 mil­lion! (really, the only spot I could find for just under R1 mil­lion was a one-bedroom can't-swing-a-cat num­ber. I was staggered).

My day­dream ever-so-slightly shattered, I had to con­tent myself instead with chat­ting to the vil­la­gers, who also feel slightly infringed upon by the escal­at­ing prices. They won't actu­ally say it out­right, as obvi­ously it is their bread and but­ter who swan in and out of the vil­lage every week­end, but there def­in­itely exists an 'us and them' fla­vour to the atmo­sphere here between those who have lived here for a time, and those who just visit.

Photographs — Left: Restored cot­tage on Vigne Lane / Right: Snow on the mountains

It does noth­ing to detract from the beauty of the vil­lage. Greyton is an exper­i­ence. The pace is slow, people greet you whatever the weather, don­key carts clat­ter along the main road along­side people exer­cising their horses, lei­wa­ter chan­nels con­duct water from one quaint cot­tage to another, and qual­ity res­taur­ants, cof­fee shops, art gal­ler­ies, a bakery and the odd char­ity shop all nestle together to form the heart of the village.

Greyton's ini­tial exist­ence was agri­cul­tural – people built little Cape Vernacular style cot­tages (no sign of Cape Dutch archi­tec­ture here) and on the rest of their long and nar­row erven, planted their own veget­ables and fruit. The reason for the estab­lish­ment of the town isn't appar­ent, but Herbert Vigne was the man respons­ible for its exist­ence, and his great grand­chil­dren still live in the vil­lage today.

The little cot­tages were ini­tially humble dwell­ings – not much more than three-roomed rect­angles with gables and pitched roofs. Roofs were ori­gin­ally thatched and later covered with cor­rug­ated iron. Many had lofts that one could access via an external lad­der. Drive down Vigne Lane and you'll see evid­ence of some of the ori­ginal cot­tages, still very much intact, or cer­tainly recog­nis­able, des­pite res­tor­a­tion and addi­tions in some way or another.

Photographs — Left: Greyton on The River / Right: Morovian Church

The last 100 or so years of his­tory is inter­est­ing. Reading between the lines, the town was a very healthy mix of col­oured and white Afrikaans speak­ing folk. The apartheid polit­ics of the 1970s forced the col­oured res­id­ents from the town and into the town­ship Heuwelkroon that stands just out­side of town. They sold their cot­tages on to an influx of white out-of-towners. Over the last 25 years or so it has evolved into a hol­i­day and retire­ment retreat with mostly wealthy city people, for­eign­ers, and those on retire­ment buy­ing up prop­erty here, extend­ing and renov­at­ing the cot­tages, and turn­ing Greyton into an envi­able coun­try life­style town.

And there is very little evid­ence of devel­op­ment here. You would have to get past the aes­thet­ics com­mit­tee — respons­ible for main­tain­ing the pre­dom­in­ance of white washed, single-storey, thatch or tin-roofed dwell­ings – first, even if some of them are out of con­text and scale. Plots are care­fully sold, and there is little altern­at­ive style build­ing here – most of it main­tains the cot­tage look and feel, which makes it all the more desirable.

Photographs — Left: Bicycle Hire / Centre: Side street scene / Right: Oak and Vigne Café from Orange Blosson window

Hence the vil­lage is incred­ibly pop­u­lar dur­ing sum­mer. People flock here from Cape Town as it's so close, for wed­dings, out door liv­ing, peace, sanc­tity and a few days of restored san­ity. It helps that the little explored nature reserve, on the edge of town, is the third biggest reserve in the Western Cape, and that Von Geusau's chocol­ate fact­ory sits on the town's out­skirts. There is plenty to do, and plenty to love about the town.

Must do's when in Greyton:

• do the his­toric vil­lage walk to acquaint your­self with the build­ings and streets
• visit the Greyton Saturday morn­ing mar­ket – it's on for only about 2 hours from 10am, and a fab­ulous feast of loc­ally pro­duced cheese, cakes, pud­ding, pies, breads, pes­tos, jams, bottled fruit, pan­cakes and other delicacies
• stock up on Von Geusau chocol­ate – you'll find an out­let in the Oak and Vigne Café (stay­ing just over the way from this vil­lage haunt was not good for my hips!)
• if in Greyton with kids, stop off at the only child-friendly res­taur­ant in town – Vanilla Café in Ds Botha Street
• stock up on bread at Wollie's – stone ground flour, no addit­ivies, no preservatives
• hire a bicycle or two at Greyton's Bikes and explore the vil­lage and surrounds
• destress and pamper your­self at High Hopes Healing Energy Centre
• eat at any num­ber of excel­lent res­taur­ants – The Post House, Peccadillos, the Oak and Vigne Café, Abbey Rose
• pick up cheese and del­ic­acies at Via's Deli
• eat home-made, tra­di­tional icecream avail­able at the Oak and Vigne Café
• pic­nic at the pic­nic spot, just off Vlei Street, oppos­ite Regent Street
• explore the Ghobos River along Vlei Street
• drive the gravel road to Riviersonderend
• pick up a Greyton pamph­let at the local info and do one of many walks

Useful Greyton Links:
• Things to Do in Greyton
• Greyton Map
• Greyton Hotels
• Greyton Accommodation
• Greyton Photographs