Festivals and Events in the Garden Route over the Festive Season

Summer Fun Festival

We are heading into the festive season, time to take some time off, spend some quality time with family and friends and a popular holiday destination to do this in is the Garden Route, with many towns and interesting sites to explore.

I thought I’d give you a bit of a head start on your holiday plans and let you know which festivals and events are taking place over the festive season along the Garden Route. For starters, the Summer Sun Festival happens in Mossel Bay and runs from Tuesday 8 December right into the second week of 2010 (8 January 2010). It’s time to sizzle with summer and the Diaz Strand Hotel during this jam packed festival … Continued

Cape Horticultural Society’s Spring Flower and Garden Show

Spring Fever is in the air! Why not visit the Cape Horticultural Society’s Spring Flower and Garden Show?

Scheduled for Sat 19th and Sunday 20th September at the Alphen Centre in Constantia, this regular Celebration of Spring features a display of interesting and unusual, as well as common or garden  plants,  all grown by members of the Society in their Peninsula gardens.  Outside stallholders will have many garden related products for sale and there will also be light refreshments available … Continued

Back from Rocking the Daisies

At Rocking the Daisies

Starting just three years ago, the folk and rock festival, “Rocking the Daisies,” has fast become one of the best music festivals in South Africa. It takes place on a farm in Darling, on the West Coast, and is one hours drive from Cape Town, making it a pleasure to attend for most locals. Combining eco, green and live music themes, it constantly aims to educate followers on living more consciously, giving back to the environment and reducing their carbon footprint.

Although messages are difficult to get across to loud and drunk revellers, the organisers pull out all the stops to be consistent. Most merchandise is made from Hemp, bio-degradable materials replace styraphome, trees are planted to make up for the carbon emissions of all the festival goers driving to the venue, who are also encouraged to bring at least 2 passengers for the drive and even the programs are printed on recycled paper. Continued

Festivals in the Cape

Cape Festivals

The amazing variety of festivals in and around the Western Cape is evidence of the fact that Capetonians like to celebrate. Having recently experienced the epic, eco-friendly Rocking the Daisies music festival in Darling, I can attest to the fact Cape Town’s party spirit is alive and well.

Capetonians don’t just rock ‘n roll however. From the Whale Festival in Hermanus, celebrating the town’s status as one of the whale watching sites in the Southern Hemisphere, to the Cape Town International Jazz festival, bringing the best performers from all over the globe, it seems every taste is accommodated. Continued

Design for sustainable living expo in Hermanus

Contributed by Wanda of www.urbansprout.co.za

There is something so exciting about this time of year. Yes, it rains a great deal in the Western Cape (who’s complaining, it’s not like we get a lot!) but it’s also the time of the coming of the whales to our shores.

Whale

I love the whales. These beautiful, gentle, giants show utter trust in humanity when they enter our bays to produce their young. I wouldn’t trust human beings with quite the same level of humility and grace (hey, I know what they’re capable of!) particularly when you take a step back and reflect on the current state of the environment. Yet people flock in their thousands to reciprocate the confident peace of these great beasts, and to catch a glimpse that leaves each of us feeling touched by something infinitely exceptional.

But back to humans and our commitment to affluence and economic growth at all costs, that is literally costing us the earth. We live in wonderful, yet alarming times where radical changes are called for. Where a profound shift in our value system and our take on the world needs to take place, or there will be little left to enjoy or call our own, and whales will be a distant memory, something about which we tell our grandchildren, but which they will never have the joy of seeing. Continued

The Grahamstown Festival

For the current National Arts Festival Programme please see National Arts Festival Programme. 

Grahamstown Festival

It was opening night and adrenalin and lack of sleep were fueling an unhealthy intensity in the house we were staying in. We had arrived in Grahamstown after a ten hour drive which ended with the actors in the back seat trading more elbow jabs and knees to the midsection than in a Thai kickboxing match. We were in Grahamstown, a small town in the Eastern Cape, for the National Arts Festival, a highlight on South African arts circuit occuring at the end of June/ beginning of July every year.

The first thing to know about Grahamstown is that it is absolutely freezing, which only seemed to give the theatrical types more reason for hysteria and mayhem, little dramatic dynamos generating their own internal sources of heat. For the rest of us proper winter clothing is essential. Stretched over about 10 days, the festival is a melting pot of the most brilliant, creative and utterly strange things the country has to offer. At the central market, which serves as the hub for the daytime activities, you’ll be accosted by everything from half-naked hypnotists and hardselling Hare Krishnas to actors evangelising about why their particular play will change your life. The market is also home to a cornucopia of traders selling everything from didjeridoos to cures for arthritis, so it’s a pefect place for unusual gifts. Continued