There are two villages on the lower slopes of the mountain. A little further away there is a small settlement built round a railway junction. These are the villages of Riebeek Kasteel, Riebeek West and Hermon which make up the Riebeek Valley.
Riebeek West is a small town situated 5 km from Riebeek Kasteel and about 75 km north-east of Cape Town in the Swartland area of the Western Cape, South Africa. The Riebeek Valley is known for its wheat, wines and more recently olives. The area of Riebeek West was first seen by Cape Dutch scouts in the late 1600s. The first settlers arrived in the area in the early 1700s.
These two towns are small towns just north of Malmesbury in the Riebeek Valley. They are home to Vineyards and wine farms as well as an Olive Oil industry. The area also has wheat farms and is home to a number of artists of world renown. Every weekend is a party in these two towns due to its close proximity to Cape Town and regular crafter's markets are being held in the town squares. This town is also the Birth place of General Jan Smuts and the famous Alsverloren Wine Estate
Contact info: Tourism Bureau swartlandtourism@westc.co.za
External links:
http://www.riebeekvalley.info/
capeinfo.com/destinations/western-cape/west.../riebeek-kasteel-west
Public transport in the area is not good - although the main railway line from Johannesburg to Cape Town runs through Wellington and Hermon and there are coach services from Cape Town to the north via Malmesbury.
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On February 4th Meerhoff wrote: "We journeyed east over the pass next to Riebeeck's Kasteel, which is a mountain, so named by us, when we came in the lovely valley east of the Riebeeck's Kasteel, where we rested. The same day we saw 13 horses (actually quagga), 5 rhinoceros, and thousands of hartebeeste." (Note: the c and 's in Riebeeck's Kasteel were subsequently dropped) Later they were stalked by a lion.
Guided by a Sonqua (bushman) tribesman, the party then travelled further north and made contact with the elusive Namaqua. They were finally forced to turn back (goldless of course) due to lack of supplies.
Meerhoff was subsequently put in charge of Robben Island (a source of building materials for the Company – extracted by convict labour) before being killed during an expedition to buy slaves in Madagascar in 1667.
the early years the Dutch and the indigenous people (mainly pastoral, nomadic Khoikhoi) coexisted fairly peacefully. However the Dutch enclosed more and more land and kept on widening their geographical sphere of influence. In due course this led to trouble. The Company created free burghers (farmers) so that more food might be produced. But the Company insisted that all produce must be sold to them at unrealistically low prices. This meant that the burghers received inadequate returns and were forced to think of other ways of surviving.
One way was hunting. In the 16oo's there were deep pools in the Berg River in which numerous hippo wallowed. They grazed in the long grass by the river where they were shot in large numbers by the burghers. This alarmed the Sonqua who complained to the Khoikhoi (led by a chief called Gonnema) that their food was being removed. The Khoikhoi, who saw that agreements previously made with the Dutch were being broken, confronted hunting parties and destroyed their equipment and belongings.
The conflict escalated. Farms were burnt and hunters killed. Finally a force was sent out from Cape Town in 1673, under Ensign Hieronymus Croese, with instructions to sort out the problem. Progress was very slow due to appalling weather – continuous rain, sometimes torrential, which frequently bought the troop to a complete standstill.
It must have been a miserable, but evidently determined, group of men who eventually camped near Riebeek Kasteel. They travelled on to the Berg River at Sonquasdrift where they were overtaken by a mounted troop of burgher militia. The river was in flood and nearly 100 paces wide. Having crossed by raft, Croese attacked the Khoikhoi, who fled. But Croese's troop rounded up most of their livestock (sheep and cattle) which were then herded back towards the Berg River. The troop was constantly harried by the Khoikhoi who attacked in force at Sonquasdrift. The crossing turned into a thundering melee. Panic stricken animals crashed about in all directions, volleys of musket fire contributed to the din and horses and men were stabbed with assegai. Croese finally got away from the drift and made his way back to Cape Town with the remaining men and animals. Meanwhile many of the Khoikhoi faced starvation, since they had been left in mid-winter with most of their livestock (on which they depended for survival) gone.
In spite of this set back the Khoikhoi continued to harass the Dutch and amassed another herd of sheep and cattle. In 1674 Croese, leading another troop, followed the mountain escarpment as far as Voelvlei. He found the Khoikhoi kraal near to what is now Gouda. Once again the Khoikhoi fled and Croese took most of the animals. But Gonnema acquired more by taking animals, which were being herded towards Cape Town, from other tribes. In so doing he more or less closed down the livestock trade which caused the Dutch considerable problems. The war dragged on, without any real advantage to either side, until 1677 when both sides agreed on peace terms. Gonnema died in 1686. Following this the tribe went into decline. Loss of land was a problem, but the final blow was a devastating smallpox epidemic which coincided with a drought and a bad period for stock disease. Many of the Khoikhoi died. By 1720 – less than 70 years after the Dutch arrived – the people who had inhabited the Riebeek Valley area for hundreds of years – had vanished as a separate entity.
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