Page 73 - Bulletin 19 2015

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 1652 Van Riebeeck establishes a victualling station at Table Bay.

 1659 Corporal Elias Giers undertakes the first exploration of the Fish Hoek Valley.

 1672-91 A DEIC (Dutch East India Co.) cattle station operates in the area.
 1682 The first farm in the Constantia Valley is established at the base of the

Steenberg.

 1685-88 Mines are excavated in the valley in the hope of finding silver. Hence the
name Silvermine Valley.

 1699 Nicolaas Oortmans is granted a hunting licence “to shoot Hartebeest, Eland and

Rhinoceros for family use” in the valley. A year later retired Governor Simon van der
Stel is granted grazing rights over all the land south of his home, Groot Constantia, by

his son Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel. This includes the Silvermine Valley.
 1743 The DEIC declares Simon’s Bay as the official port for all winter (May to

August) moorings.

 1743 The first farms are granted in the Fish Hoek Valley: Slangenkop (now Imhoff’s
Gift) and Goede Hoop (at Noordhoek) to Christina Diemer, the owner of the

Zwaanswijk (now Steenberg) farm in the Constantia Valley, and Poespaskraal (now
Sunnydale) to Georg Wieser, the owner of Groot Constantia.

Farms and Tracks

The earliest map showing details of farms and tracks dates from 1787, some 40 years after
farming opened up the Fish Hoek – Noordhoek valley. (Fig. 2.1.) Of interest is the track over

the Steenbergen connecting Christina Diemer’s two farms – Zwaanswijk and Goede Hoop:
From Zwaanswijk it climbs onto the Plateau and then winds down the Silvermine Valley

before turning west along the mid-slopes to Goede Hoop at Noordhoek. The remains of part

of this 200-year old track above Zwaanswijk are shown in photographs taken in the mid-
1930s. (Fig. 2.2.) No photos were provided of its route down the Silvermine Valley and

westwards to Noordhoek, and perhaps by then all traces had been obliterated by the passage

of time. A network of other tracks crosses the valley floor with some running generally south-
eastwards in the direction of Simon’s Bay.

As was related in a previous talk, the DEIC never constructed a ‘mountain highway’ during

the 1740s, an Ou Kaapse Weg, linking Table Bay to Simon’s Bay via the Steenberg