Irrigating the Gamtoos Valley

How often do you wonder where exactly the water in your tap and fruit and vegetables in your kitchen comes from?  We'll, if you live in Port Elizabeth its possible to answer both these questions for yourself by visiting the Gamtoos Valley.  The Gamtoos Valley is often referred to as the food basket of the Eastern Cape as it is one of South Africa's biggest citrus and vegetable producing areas.  The farms get their irrigation water from exactly the same place we get our drinking water from, the Kouga Dam.

The dam is a double curve arch dam with an 82 m high wall and storage capacity of 128,7 million m3.  The catchment area is inside the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area from where the Kouga River carries the water into the 34 km long dam basin.  Other than for water supply the dam was also built as a flood control mechanism to lessen the impact of a flood on the lower Gamtoos River.  Visitors can get right up to the point where I took the photos from for a view of the dam and dam wall with it becoming an even more exceptional sight when the dam overflows. 

Water is taken from the Kouga Dam to the Loerie Dam via a main canal while irrigation water for the farms in the valley is distributed by means of a series of canals and pipelines.  7400 ha of scheduled ground are irrigated with every irrigator being supplied with at least one draw-off with a self registering meter.  These are then operated by the farmers themselves according to their needs and up to a maximum limit of 8000 m3 per ha per year.

And this is where the irrigation water goes.  Citrus orchards like this and fields of potatoes and other vegetables.  The Gamtoos Valley is the ideal breakaway for city folk in the Port Elizabeth area.  The area offers beautiful scenic views, fresh air, lekker food, genuine farm stalls and real wholesome country living hospitality, with most guest houses and B&B's situated on working farms.

Orchard rainbow

An afternoon shower washed off the dust of a day exploring the Gamtoos Valley along some dirt back roads.  As the sun came out we went for a walk through the citrus orchard at Nikalandershoek where we were staying and a rainbow appeared over the trees.  The perfect end to the day.

The view from Kirkwood Lookout

On Friday I took part in the Skäl Nelson Mandela Bay's annual Tourism Amazing Race.  This year it took place in the beautiful Sundays River Valley north of Port Elizabeth.  I purposely left my camera behind as the team I was in went all out to defend our title from last year.  In the end we came in first but due to a 5min penalty got relegated to second.  Just to show how competitive the race between the top teams were its important to mention that the third team only came in 30 minutes later.  During the race we got to visit a number of interesting and historic places around the valley and I was kinda sorry that, firstly, I didn't have my camera and, secondly, I didn't have time to really take in all the places we went to.  I really need to take a day or two to go and explore.

 

I do have two photos of the valley that I took from Lookout at Kirkwood when we were up there for the Kirkwood Wildsfees.  The valley is mostly an agricultural area with citrus being farmed.  Because of its close proximity to the Addo Elephant National Park there is a lot of guest lodges in the area and perhaps one of them read this post and invites me for a couple of nights to come and experience the valley a bit more. *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*

Icons of the Karoo - Farm gate

After posting "Quintessential Karoo" of the people walking on the dirt road in the Karoo the other day I started thinking.  What do people associate with the Karoo?  I came up with the following. Big skies, dusty roads, wind mills (windpompe), flowering aloes, sheep and Angora goats, Karoo koppies, inspiring silence, beautiful sunsets, farm gates, Karoo bush and historic towns and landmarks.  The Karoo has so much to offer, you just need to know where to look and what to look for.

Rust in Peace

Next to The Ark in Joubertina in the Langkloof stands the rusty remains of a tractor. A very old tractor.  In actual fact a 1928 Wallis tractor.  The first tractor to be brought to the Langkloof and the first of many tractors to follow.  Seeing a sight like this as a monument could be a bit on the weird side anywhere else, but in the Langkloof where farming plays such an important part in everyday life this is a significant part of their history.

Citrus farm tour

While browsing around the stalls at the Patensie Citrus Festival on Saturday I heard the announcer say something about tractor trips to one of the citrus farms and I immediately went to enquire. Five minutes later the family was sitting in a trailer behind farmer Danie Malan's tractor in anticipation for the tour to his farm to start.

Along the way Danie stopped to tell us about the young citrus trees that we saw and how the sun can easily burn their trunks hence the trunks getting wrapped.  The second stop was at the lemon orchard where I got to hop off and pick a couple of lemons that went into dessert on Father's Day (the next day), lemon meringue.  After another short ride we got to the naartjie orchard, our main destination.

Everybody on board got a bag and could get off the trailer and pic their own naartjies.  Pipless and guaranteed sweet.  This is the type of thing that city folk love to do as most of them have never had the opportunity to walk between the trees and pick their own fruit.  This has great tourism potential for an area with city slickers going there for a weekend to experience the farm atmosphere.  The Gamtoos Valley has a lot of very good farm based accommodation establishments, so perhaps all they need to do is to offer the farm experience along with it and they would be able to attract even more people to the beautiful part of the province.  But I digress. 

The farm tour was by far the Kidz' favorite part of the day.  Especially Drama Princess loved picking the fruit and I'm sure she will enjoy living on a farm so much more than in the city.  The In-Laws joined us at the festival a little later on and also went on the tour with the Kidz tagging along again.  Like the farmer said, "They're my best customers." 

Montagu Dried Fruit

I love summer fruits (well, any fruit actually) like peaches, plums and apricots.  That was one of the many reasons I looked forward to spending the first part of our summer holiday in the Klein Karoo town of Montagu.  The area has a rich soil and amazing micro climate and along with the fact that there is an abundance of water makes it ideal to farm summer fruits.

On our first day in Montagu I discovered the Montagu Dried Fruit Factory Shop.  Let me not start about my love for dried fruit.  Nom nom nom...  Montagu Dried Fruit and Nuts was established in 1991 and as one of Africa’s largest wholesalers of dried fruit and nuts and currently markets 35% of all dried tree fruit in South Africa.  The shop has an amazing range of dried fruit (and nuts) and we probably returned another three or four times while we were in town. 

Except for the dried fruit, they also sell fresh apricots and peaches.  The apricots sold for... wait for it... you won't believe this... R2 per kilogram.  Drama Princess filled up a couple of bags for us and we had to keep reminding the kidz not to over indulge as we didn't want any tummy problems.

The factory is situated right behind the shop, but visitors aren't allowed inside the factory itself.  We did go on a tractor tour (which I will post about shortly) during which was saw the peaches being dried in the sun.  I posted a picture of peach pips yesterday and a couple of people asked what it's used for.  Somebody in town told me that Montagu Dried Fruit is the only place in South Africa that "produces" the pips like this.  They break them to get the moisture out and then they also get dried in the sun.  Its then sold to people who put them in the gardens, specially in garden paths and drive ways.  All the roads in Montagu Caravan Park where we stayed is covered in peach pips.  I wish I could get my hands on some.