Page 57 - Bulletin 14 2010

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over the hills behind Kalk Bay, to avoid those Fish Hoek quick sands which persisted into the
present century.

th
“During most of the 18 century while the old “Kaapsche Pad” continued to carry
substantial traffic between Cape Town and Simon’s Town, Fish Hoek remained in obscurity.”

Rosenthal, E. (1968) A History of Fish Hoek, pp. 4 & 6.

Presumably, The Wanderer and Rosenthal knew of Wallace’s article but there are significant
differences in the configurations of the routes of the Ou Pad described by them: Wallace’s road

takes off at Steenberg farm, having followed the curve of the Constantia-Tokai foothills to that
point, whereas Rosenthal’s road climbs the mountain from a point presumably near Lakeside

having run due south from Wynberg; the Wanderer’s route from the summit follows closely the
course of the Silvermine river south-eastwards to Kleintuin (Clovelly) before turning back west

to Brakkloof, whereas Wallace’s road remains on higher ground to the west of the Silvermine

valley and comes down to the main valley bottom near the saltpan before heading for Brakkloof.

Evidently, the network of paths and tracks that had come into existence by the twentieth century
made it difficult for contemporary researchers to distinguish those that had been made over two

hundred years earlier from those built more recently for purposes such as reservoir construction,
quarrying, afforestation, fire control, and hiking.

Origins of paths and tracks in the South Peninsula up to 1795

The Cape was an inhabited region for thousands of years before the colonial era. Evidence

suggests that by 1652 there were 17 – 18,000 people of Khoi-San origin living between the Berg
River and Table Bay. They were pastoralists with vast herds of cattle and sheep and led a

nomadic life governed by the seasonal availability of water and grazing for their animals. It
seems likely that they had been doing this for at least 1,000 years prior to the European contact.

(Deacon, 1983.) The south Peninsula was an off-shoot of this larger regime and the seasonal
movement of animals and people established the pattern of tracks and paths encountered by the

colonists, and later used by them.