Page 97 - Bulletin 20 2016

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later release when it became practical to fence the still piecemeal acquisitions of land to the
north.

Also in 1942, it was wisely decided to not demolish the historical and much in need of repair
Buffelsfontein homestead but rather develop it into accommodation for the then-Warden Mr.
G. J. S. (Chippie) Baynes, and as a visitors’ tea-room which his wife and daughters ran for
the next 17 years of his service to the Reserve and the Divisional Council. With additions,
this later developed into the Homestead Restaurant still remembered fondly by many today.
With the decision to expand the tourist facilities at Cape Point in the early 1990s the
Homestead was closed. Two years later the building was scaled back and restored as close as
practical to its original form and today serves as the Buffelsfontein Visitor Information
Centre.

Where is the Cape of Good Hope?

One of the most interesting developments in these early years of the Reserve, and possibly
spurred on by the establishment of the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve in name, is that
someone in authority – after nearly five centuries – at last asked the vexed question “where is
the actual Cape of Good Hope?” It seems that down the centuries it had become
commonplace to think of the Cape of Good Hope as a generic name for the whole Cape
Peninsula or even the Cape Province more widely. In the case of countries with a long
maritime tradition, however, and in the parlance of the sea, the word ‘cape’ is used to
distinguish a very much more specific landmark. As Mr. B. B. Brock notes in a paper he
wrote for the Simon’s Town Historical Society in 1969 (130) it is highly unusual to have, in
fact, three capes (Cape of Good Hope, Cape Maclear and Cape Point) within a mile and a half
of each other at the end of the Cape Peninsula, and goes on to explain that;

“to the navigator as a specialist [a cape] is a projection of land that must be rounded
or ‘doubled’ ” and further adds, “the term ‘cape’ is reserved for headlands that
demand a drastic alteration of course in the major shipping routes. Britain with its
serrated coastline appears to have only one cape labeled as such – Cape Wrath. The
other headlands are ‘point’ or ‘head or ‘ness’ or ‘mull’. Even Land’s End is just that.”

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