Muratie Wine Estate hike and love.

Prickly Pears on Muratie Wine Estate.

The hiking leader’s words floated away the minute my eyes fell upon the bobbles of the cactus plant.

Prickly pears, or Opuntia, are one of those elements that personify my South Africa. Prickly pears will curse you with invisible thorns to plague for hours, or bless you with the sweetest, coolest answer to life when taken straight from the fridge.

And there they were, early morn, juicy temptations beside the old farm wall. Pragtig.

We were not there for a wine tasting alas, but rather to hike one of the many trails cut between forests and valleys in the Knorhoek area, and specifically on Muratie Wine Estate. I’m the one without the hiking gear, never here long enough to justify looking quite the type with sticks and boots and belts with possibilities.

Breathtaking views. Taken by one of the hiking group.

The views over the valley are poetic. The old farmhouse and buildings are natural and deeply settled into their surroundings. Past owners have included a painter, a pioneering woman, a gambling debt gone wrong, and a touching love story that started it all.

In 1685, Adrian van der Stel, Governor of the Cape, entrusted a young German soldier to cultivate and tame this area, planting harvests and raising animals. Lourens Campher was this young man.

Campher had also met, and fallen in love with a young slave at the Cape Castle. Her mother was an Angolan slave and her father a soldier. If Lourens ever wished to marry Ansela, he would have to buy her freedom.

Undeterred for more than a decade, Lourens worked hard to make a success of the farm. When he could, he would walk the distance to Cape Town to court Ansela until he eventually procured her freedom and they were married in 1699. Both returned to settle in the farmhouse he had built from clay bricks and mud.

Not only was their love everlasting, but the same house still stands today, to be enjoyed as an Art Gallery.

A Valentine’s story if there ever was one, and it happened to be Valentine’s day.

Of course, any old wine farm needs a relic like this.

Muratie offers excellent wines, to which I can attest from the amount purchased by my fellow hikers. They offer an excellent menu from Wednesdays to Sundays and the restaurant is in a shady, seductive area beneath the grand Old Oak trees. Cool water features for the tempered brow and late afternoons must be magical things.

I will return for the wine, and the food. My thoughts then were quite on other things. It started with the prickly pears, the heritage of my country, memories of being on Kransfontein and a love story, a genuine love story between Lourens and Ansela.

A perfect destination for you next trip to the winelands.

https://www.muratie.co.za