Fruit Growing Region
Once you are over Sir Lowry’s Pass, you will find yourself up on a high-lying mountain plateau where the fruit orchards of Grabouw and Elgin flourish.
This well-watered area, sometimes called the Greenlands, is an important fruit growing region producing apples, pears, plums and nectarines for local use and export.
Today, South Africa is renowned for the quality of its deciduous fruit, but this was not always the case.
Wine farming was the Cape’s big cash crop ever since the Huguenots arrived in 1688. So, by the late 1800s, few other fruits, besides grapes, were being grown anywhere on the Peninsula.
Then, a deadly fungus called Phylloxera hit the Cape vineyards and wiped out the vines. Sammy Marks, the canny gold magnate, suggested to Cecil John Rhodes that this might be a good time to try and produce some alternative crops.
Rhodes nodded sagely and quickly bought out huge tracts of land from the bankrupt wine farmers around the Drakenstein Mountains.
The result was Rhodes Co-operative Farms, which was, for many years, a major player in South Africa’s fresh fruit industry.
As you continue along the Greenlands Plateau, you will come to the Houw Hoek Inn.
This was originally the last outspan before riders girded their loins and took their wagons over the Houw Hoek Pass, the next obstacle on the Eastern Highway.
By David Fleminger
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