ROAD TRIP
At 12 km, Paarl has the longest main road in South Africa. More than just a thoroughfare, the road reveals a fascinating cross section of a town
Words Lin Murray
Living in South Africa, and Cape Town in particular, means there’s always opportunity for surprise, adventure and a little bit of mystery. I take mine in the redemptive form of a road trip. Whenever I feel that I’ve swum – gulping – around Cape Town’s City Bowl a few too many times, I know it’s time to take to the road. Paarl, in the Boland, is a place I usually rush past; in my mind, it’s a blur to my left as I race towards the Huguenot Tunnel to breach the rocky folds of the Mother City’s encircling arms. Once expelled on the other side, only then am I truly out of town, and away. My impression of Paarl, the town – granted, embarrassingly uninformed – is that it is the much uglier, khaki-clad sister of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, the runt of the Winelands litter. I mention this to a friend one night over dinner, who does consultancy work with local government in the Boland. ‘Paarl is amazing,’ she tells me, ‘the people there are really kind. And, did you know, it has the longest main road in South Africa?’ No, I didn’t, but I’m intrigued by what the country’s longest main thoroughfare, at a whopping 12 km, must contain within its stretch. I realise it’s time to go on a road trip, but this time, of the most literal kind…
Saturday, 9:30 am
It’s an astoundingly beautiful day as my partner and I turn our backs on the city, and ease our way into a tributary of the outbound N1 highway. It’s at least a 25-minute drive before the shopping centres, industria, security complexes, carbon-copy houses and power lines start to peter out into almost-rural farmland. The grass becomes greener, brighter – testimony to a wet winter and a new season whose visit is still in the planning stages. The fields are festooned with arum lilies, a random cow here and there. We pass a decrepit farmhouse with crumbling, white outbuildings and a dam, perfectly mirroring the feathered clouds of an endless sky. Ahead of us is the black range of Simonsberg, like the ancient ridge of a stegosaurus, and even further beyond the frowns and furrows, in an ocean of impenetrable rock, a filigree of snow. As we get closer to the Paarl turn-off, the mountain starts rolling up towards us on the left. Bald patches of wet, rounded granite catch the rays of the warming sun, and glint, as so many explorers before us have described it, like jewels. Abraham Gabbema, the first European to discover the area after being sent out by Jan van Riebeek in 1657 to explore the hinterland and barter with the Khoisan for cattle, aptly named it the Diamond and Pearl Mountain (from the Dutch ‘de Diamant en de Paarlberg’) – and there’s no getting away from that visual comparison. It’s a spectacular sight. Alighting the rocks is the grandiose, reverent, pointing finger of the Taal Monument, erected in the Seventies to commemorate the Afrikaans language. In spite of its size, I’ve never really looked at it properly; it’s embroidered itself into the landscape, like so many statues from another era tend to do. A gargantuan wine bottle, the height of a triple-storey house, on our right at Simonsvlei wine farm, indicates our arrival in wineland territory. We have arrived. The journey took just under an hour – in Gabbema’s time, it would have taken three days.
10:30 am
When recounting Gabbema’s journey, historians describe the Paarl Valley at the time as the ‘fairest of all South African vales’; a valley of trees and tall grass and wild flowers, replete with roaming hippo, rhino and zebra. Three-hundred-and-fifty years later, as we turn into Paarl, my first take on it is not so gracious. Main Road begins with a wide flurry of ugly little shops, petrol garages and brown houses. It’s also surprisingly frantic with Saturday morning traffic. People are not taking kindly to our snail’s pace. Giant four-wheel-drive trucks zoom past as we crawl along like the out-of-towners we are, looking left and right at anything of interest – a town crest, a fresco on a building, a sign advertising a local festival. The idea had been to park the car somewhere and walk the main road, but I quickly realise that this is a little too ambitious – things are far more spread out than expected. But we have an important travel rule: Never judge a place by its point of entry – wait until you’ve reached its heart before you form an opinion. With this in mind, we drive onwards. We’ll do a recce, we decide, and then work our way back.
10:40 am
After a few kilometres, the road starts transforming, shedding its modern buildings and sliding, ever so slightly, into a picturesque history book. Beautiful old houses, superbly renovated and restored, some trading as antique shops or restaurants, start sprouting among the more generic establishments. White church spires shoot up into the impossibly blue sky. We even pass a vineyard. Gnarled oak trees, still winter-bare, line both sides of the road, and it feels like we should be on a horse-drawn cart, not in a car. We pull up next to one of the town’s tourism offices so that the hooting behind us can recede a bit.
10:45 am
Inside, the office is abuzz with visitors. I find a map of Main Road, and Sharon, behind the desk, points out that the historic mile starts at Strooidak Church, the oldest church building still in use in South Africa. I ask her what she thinks of Paarl. ‘It’s quiet,’ she says. ‘It’s nice, if you’re old.’
10:55 am
The historic mile is about a two-kilometre stretch of exquisite architecture – from Cape Dutch to Victorian, Edwardian and, surprisingly, Art Deco buildings. It’s a lovely walk, and it feels good to be out in the sun. We crane our necks to look up at the imposing Dutch Reformed Toringkerk (Tower Church) – its 57m steeple is the highest in South Africa. By now, we’ve realised that Paarl has many of these claims – the oldest, the highest, the first and, of course, the longest.
11:35 am
Back in the car, Main Road continues, turning right into what Sharon referred to as a ‘dog’s leg’, before it straightens out again. Well, if it is a dog’s leg, then it must surely be the hind one, as once again newer, unattractive facebrick buildings jostle for space and a bustling McDonald’s presides, as incongruous as ever. Pedestrians cross the road with shopping bags. Music blares out of shops. The smell of woodsmoke and braaing meat hangs in the air. We pass the second pancake tent in the space of one block, where roadside stalls are selling brightly coloured beanbags and wooden bird feeders.
11:55 am
We are now clocking over 11 km. Shops give way to houses, which in turn give way to vineyards and clustered farm workers’ cottages, where washing flaps on wire fences like colourful Tibetan prayer flags. There’s no clear indication of the point where Main Road actually ends, but as it starts to rise up into a distant, pastoral hill, it’s obvious that our recce is over. It’s time to turn the car around and backtrack. From this vantage point, the puzzle-book view of the Paarl Valley, simmering in its mountain nest in the midday sun, is absorbing. Conveniently, we’re also right next to Boland Kelder, a wine co-op, and we duck inside to stock up on Cabernet Sauvignon.
12:15 pm
The plan is to find coffee, and to do some more exploring of the retail kind. But as we enter the mayhem of Main Road again, I notice a dirty building in a nondescript bundle of businesses. It’s the Crown Bar, which, as the oldest pub in South Africa, is another one to add to the list. Inside, it’s stereotypically gloomy, with shafts of light squeezing through the half-closed shutters, picking up dust and cigarette smoke. The walls are covered with animal heads and drunken scribbles. I pick out one that says, ‘Hot Rod Jan came back 5/2/2007 with his new woman’. There are headache tablets for sale at the till, and the bar is plastered with old South African rand notes. We order two beers, in the spirit of adventure, and drink them with nervous speed.
12:30 pm
With that out of our systems, we scurry back into the light. Our next stop is Kikka, a colourful and contemporary coffee shop, wine bar and florist. I can’t resist buying a bunch of flowers while ordering cappuccinos. We sit on the outside porch, and I marvel at Main Road’s many contrasts and contradictions.
1 pm
Fortified, I start foraging for finds. First up is Rosie’s, a wonderfully enchanting antique bookshop and chocolate stop. Like a character out of Chocolat, owner Fiona Brophy offers me little heavenly morsels to try. ‘I love this place,’ she tells me. ‘Magical things happen in it.’ When I leave, she presses a small bottle of jasmine oil and a chunk of rose quartz into my hand. In Enchanté, a serene gift and decor shop, I browse through French toiletries, scented candles, hand-embroidered bed linen and exquisite kitchenware, to discover little wire hearts that I haven’t been able to find back home in the city. A peep next door into the boutique, Wild Orchid, reveals vintage jewellery and accessories, beautiful handbags and gorgeous clothing. Across the road, I discover Decor Selections Interiors, a veritable treasure trove filled with an array of crockery, vases, throws, cushions and stylishly African accessories for the home. More browsing and perusing at two antique shops – The Gables, and Coco Antiques – and finally, I stop at Die Gieter, a nursery with a difference, to admire its range of succulents, displayed on old wooden ladders and rusty bird cages.
2 pm
My partner is getting fidgety. The biltong shop is closed, he says. Suddenly, we realise that the town is shutting down around us. With the striking of some country-pumpkin hour, Main Road clears of cars, closed signs appear and shutters seal like eyelids. The hullabaloo of Saturday morning has evaporated into a soporific fug. Yet again, the road’s transformation takes us completely by surprise. We commiserate over a piece of caramel fudge cake at a coffee shop, Chat. The owner, Des, from Pretoria, says she is still new to the town’s ways, which would explain why her place is the only one left open at this time of day. And with that, there’s one more thing left to do…
3 pm
The route to the Taal Monument, which spills off Main Road, winds high above the town.
At the top, it’s utterly still, bar the faint whirr of insects. Granite knits with blue sky and cloud. Standing inside the monument’s main column is like looking up at the vertebra of a giant animal. But the best view is that of the pearl-rock outside: unmoving, unchanging; hunkering down on a mountain that once gave birth to a town, a true diamond in the rough. We sit for a while, quietly satisfied, knowing that we will return to Paarl soon – for there is still so much to discover.
SHOP AT…
Decor Selections Interiors
88 Main Road
021 863 3699
Enchanté
135A Main Road
021 863 4659
Wild Orchid
135 Main Road
021 863 4696
Rosie’s
169 Main Road
083 512 4500/083 369 6777
Die Gieter
125 Main Road
021 863 4128
The Gables Antique and Fine Furniture
12 Main Road
082 897 5233
Coco Antiques
78 Main Road
021 863 0018
REFUEL AT…
Kikka
217 Main Street
021 872 0685
Chat Coffi Cafe
Klein Amsterdam Building
81 Main Road
021 863 0586
Lusthof
The Little Vineyard
The Coffee Room
109A Main Road
082 908 6062
STAY AT…
De Oude Paarl Hotel
132 Main Road
021 872 1002
Pontac Manor
Hotel & Restaurant
16 Zion Street
(just off Main Road)
021 872 0445
CATCH YOUR BREATH AT…
The Taal Monument
021 872 3441