Camps Bay Library | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

The MyCiTi Bus finally started operating on Saturday, about eighteen months behind schedule! Given that we want to inform our Whale Cottage Camps Bay guests about the service, my colleague and I went for a test drive of the Camps Bay – Civic Centre – V&A Waterfront Silo route yesterday.

The first step was to obtain our MyCiTi Bus cards, which one needs to load credit on to, for swiping when stepping on the bus. It was announced that one could obtain a free card (a saving of R25) from the Camps Bay Library, where an official from the City of Cape Town sold us R30-loaded cards, the only cards one can purchase at the library this week. These can only be bought for cash, and only one per person can be obtained, ID details being taken. The City representative was uncertain about the other places at which one can load more credit onto the card, saying that Kauai was to be a point to do so, but that its system was off-line yesterday. He thought Pick ‘n Pay Camps Bay would be another point, but he wasn’t sure. There does not appear to be any place to purchase cards once the City’s generous offer of free cards ends on Saturday. One would then have to go the Queen’s Beach station, or to the Civic Centre to buy cards there. Each card comes with a pin, which one can change at a station, and is required to load more credit. There was only one newspaper advertorial on the table, and no leaflets, saying he was waiting for more. When I asked for more information for the guest house, he gave me a pile of the newspaper copies from under the table!

We took the bus from the Whale Rock bus stop opposite Pick ‘n Pay Camps Bay just after 14h00, and we were delighted to see the name choice. The bus travelled alongside Victoria Road, up Argyle Road , into Geneva Drive, onto Camps Bay Drive, down Kloofnek Road (this seems to be a very dangerous stop, as we observed a tourist family getting on the bus, which had been to Table Mountain and must have crossed the very busy road without a pedestrian crossing to get the bus stop), connecting into Kloof Street (very long Continue reading →

Jane Bodin, a resident of Camps Bay, is to be commended for establishing the Camps Bay Trails. Having researched the history of the suburb, she compiled the trials, to share the Camps Bay historic gems with others, reports the Atlantic Sun.

The Trails start at the Camps Bay Library, at which steps is a plaque of Philly, a large white horse which roamed the suburb between 1932 and 1967 with Nellie, his friend the donkey. Then the Trails move to the War Memorial, on the corner of Link Street and Victoria Road, and built after World War I. The Memorial honours those from Camps Bay who fought in the First and Second World Wars. In fact the road running along the sea was named in honour of Queen Victoria’s 1887 Golden Jubilee.

The Theatre on the Bay building was the original building for the powerhouse of the trams that ran between Sea Point and Camps Bay from 1901 onward. The building has also been used as a cinema and a church. The stone cottages on the bottom end of Geneva Drive were built over 100 years ago, as homes for the tram drivers. In Crown Crescent, around the corner, wooden historical Swiss cottages imported from Norway were established.

The oldest church in the suburb is the St. Peter’s Anglican Church, for which building commenced in 1905, but completed in 1929, as was the Dutch Reformed Church completed in that year. The Fairways in Camps Bay was once the grounds of a nine hole golf course, a Kramat and a synagogue. The Roundhouse, leased to the restaurant, is the oldest building in Camps Bay (built in 1786), followed by The Retreat (1857), now used as a boutique hotel. The Rotunda behind the Bay Hotel was built in 1904.

The promenade of Camps Bay has 35 palm trees, planted by James Riddel Farquhar in the 1900’s, who wanted Camps Bay to look like New Brighton! Camps Bay is also recorded in the Guinness Book of Records, for having the longest serving chemist (of 70 years) in the world, being Phillip Isaacs.

For more details about the Camps Bay Trails, see www.campsbaycommunity.com

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com