Important Buildings
Step into the Drostdy in Swellendam, the third-oldest town in South Africa, and you're back in the 1800s with peach-pip floors and riempie chairs.
It's not for nothing that the Drostdy promotes itself as the most important building in Swellendam: it's a prime example of a Cape Dutch house, originally built as a small T-shaped building but enlarged to an H-shaped building almost twice the size. Around the museum is the Ambagswerf (trade yard) where historic tools and equipment are exhibited.
The imposing Dutch Reformed Church in Swellendam was built in 1911. It is a church with an identity crisis: the architect mixed in Renaissance, Gothic, Baroque, Eastern and Cape Dutch elements. The arched gateway is the only bit left from the original 1802 building.
Bontebok National Park
The Bontebok National Park is a place of serene beauty and peaceful charm with the Langeberg Mountains providing a majestic backdrop. As a part of the Cape Floral Kingdom and now heralded as a world heritage site, the Park always has something in bloom to show off.
The park has lovely trails that visitors can run, hike and mountain bike. The terrain consists of good gravel roads with some stretches of loose stone. Various circular and return route options beckon in the reserve - from 5km to over 40km. Surface quality is rough in places, with stretches of loose gravel and entire fields of loose, fist-sized rocks sure to give your legs a good workout.
From the park offices, follow the winding gravel road along a moderate downhill towards the river, keeping right and circling around to where the camp site overlooks the Breede River (12km). From here, you can either return directly to the gate (approximately 6.5km) or continue along the river course. The latter option is around 1km in length and leads into quite a few climbs along rocky park roads in an anticlockwise direction.
If you’re looking for the perfect weekend getaway in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, accommodation in Swellendam will offer coupl...