We left Constantia Nek at 07h15 from whence we uneventfully walked up Orange Kloof to Journey’s End and the upstream entrance to the Woodhead Tunnel, where we looked inside the entrance. From the Woodhead Tunnel we ascended to the entrance of the Apostles Tunnel which was locked, and to the Woodhead Dam. Thence to the top of the dam wall, along the railway trackbed, past the concrete of the former Public Shelter floor to the remains of the cableway at the top of Kasteels Poort. We then walked towards Echo Valley, and across to the Club Hut where lunch was eaten. After lunch we walked past the old quarry to the waterworks museum which was closed. After examining the Hely Hutchinson dam wall we continued up the Disa Gorge, along the Aqueduct to the Smuts Track, thence to the top of Skeleton Gorge where Mr Cope hurriedly departed to attend a business meeting. We then walked up to the upstream end of the Hely Hutchinson reservoir. Thence past the Victoria and Alexandra Reservoirs to the former Wynberg reservoirs overseer’s cottage, now an upmarket SANParks visitors’ residence. Finally we walked down the Jeep Track arriving at Constantia Nek at 17h45. Distance covered was about 20 km. En route the Leader gave a running commentary on the various artefacts, and their significance relevant to the contemporaneous political and social situations.
See the late Terence Timoney’s account of the waterworks history. Further information can be found in Wall K. (1998), “Of water, mountains and megacities”, Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa (101), 36 – 46.
The Special Collections of the library of the University of Cape Town contains many papers of Terence Timoney. It also houses the MCSA archives which contain many relevant photographs, paper cuttings et al.
Stephen Craven
Photos supplied by Denise Waterhouse and Neil Brathwaite
