Take a drive on the sunny side

It began with a flash of yellow. It winked, then disappeared behind a bend in the road. The car accelerated down a hill and when the steep decline hit the lowest point my stomach dipped — as it does — and we headed up again. We crested the hill, and a rising luminous tide engulfed us.

It’s been more than two decades since my first encounter; canola flowers have woven themselves into the fabric of the Western Cape spring and a drive on the sunny side has become a yearly pilgrimage to startlingly bright fields interleaved with softer shades of wheat and barley green, and the grey and blue of the mountains behind.

It’s an unlikely romance. Canola is in the same family as cabbage and is a type of rapeseed cultivated to be safe for humans and animals. Its name has been similarly modified to be palatable: a contraction of “Canadian oil, low acid”, or Canada ola if you want to be kind. Even the Latin name does little to add glamour. But since the first seeds landed in South Africa in the 1990s, Brassica napus has love bombed the landscape into a glorious farmland disco. About 31,000ha was under canola when I first saw it in the early 2000s; that number now is almost 165,000ha. Production is up 10 times in the same period to a forecast of almost 312,000 tonnes.

For canola tourists, the time to arrive at the party is all-important and it would be wise to make a couple of inquiries before you set out because it can vary by year and by region. The Overberg was fashionably early in 2025, where flowering began in July, while in the Malmesbury area there were blooms in late August, and reportedly in September too. Miss peak flowering and the canary colour is toned down by green and brown as the flowers turn to brittle pods. By the end of the year, the fields are stubble, and the farmers have what really matters: the seeds.

Rich history

Canola is well suited to the Western Cape, but it took bravery and inspiration to bring in the first seeds. With a handful of farmers planting their first experimental hectares, Southern Oil (Soill) opened the doors of its refinery in Swellendam in 1996. The intention of farmers in the early days was to use this new crop for field rotation, but the mill was able to turn it into cash in the form of oil and animal feed. The silver silos at the conjunction of the N2 and the R60 turnoff to Swellendam are a bright and shiny reminder of the refinery’s importance to the town’s economy.

Close by is the Old Mill guesthouse and eatery, both owned by Soill. The guesthouse, which dates from 1840, was originally a mill and is now set in a serene garden, where water channels echo the tradition. Facing the road is the eatery, which provides a full Swellendam and canola experience: wines, cheese and charcuterie platters sourced from the region, and if you incline to breakfast, burgers or basics, they will be spritzed or fried with canola oil or served with a side of Soill’s B-well products: mayonnaise, salad dressing or dip.

We chose to stay at the Old Mill so we could live inside the past at a fairly budget-friendly price, but better-heeled history lovers have a lot of options. The grandeur of Schoone Oordt at 1 Swellengrebel St makes my heart skip: it is an elegant grey/blue and white Georgian double storey with a filigree-embellished Victorian veranda. Rothman House at 268 Voortrek Street — now the boutique hotel Rothman Manor — was built by a blacksmith in 1834, the year the slaves were emancipated in the Cape.

‘The Church’

The single most recognisable landmark in Swellendam is “The Church”. It warrants capital letters and citation marks not because it is the only church and not because it is the oldest — that title belongs to St Luke’s (1865) — but because it is the most assertively uplifting and requires some grammatical genuflection.

This information comes from Treasures of Swellendam, which was compiled by the Swellendam Heritage Association and is available at Bokmakiri Books in Swellengrebel St. It is a rundown of more than 100 historical sites with pictures and maps, and is a useful guide for tackling the imposing Drostdy Museum complex further up the road.

Two hundred and fifty years before the canola mill, there was the Drostdy. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) established the office of the landdrost to keep order after farmers pushed beyond the confines of Stellenbosch into the Overberg. The landdrost’s residence was built in 1746 close to where the wagon road crossed the Koornlands River, and the town began to grow from there. I can’t help thinking that the Langeberg mountain range — reassuringly close — was a mother and a father for the stern little settlement: its guiding north, its protector and plentiful untamed garden. The first half of the 19th century was a boom time, and Treasures of Swellendam points out echoes of the once powerful Barry & Nephews, a company that opened up maritime trade in the southern Cape with its trading steamer, the Kadie. The tale has been well told in this publication by Nick Yell.

But the 1860s brought drought and depression, then the wrecking of the Kadie and bankruptcy for the Barrys, before a fire in 1865 devastated the centre of town. The extravagant width of Voortrek St does not date to its beginnings as the main road connecting the town to the southern Cape or to the fire. It was widened during the lifetime of some readers — in 1965 — and old trees and buildings were lost. The difference is evident in the narrower, tree-lined Swellengrebel St. Ten years before, the far-sighted director of the Drostdy Museum, Mary Cooke, successfully campaigned to have the oaks along that street declared a national monument, creating an immovable object in the face of seemingly unstoppable modernisation.

For the sheer silly joy of driving through a psychedelic landscape, the N2 between Swellendam and Cape Town does the trick, but another way to appreciate the flowers is to meander off the highways and be surprised. Try the R46 and R45 network of roads from just east of Ceres to Gouda, Riebeek Kasteel and Malmesbury.

One route I particularly enjoy is between Napier and Caledon. So, with a flask of condensed milk coffee and a playlist stolen from the Ellis Park DJ, we turned off the N2 and headed via the R317 to the R316 singing “sweet canola” to the words of Sweet Caroline. But we fell quiet after Napier, where the landscape is folded and creased and conducive to revery. The colours swoop as if a swallow had painted them: sweeps of yellow carved with emerald lucerne, pale green river courses and scoops of knobbled fynbos on inclines too steep to cultivate.

Travel Notes:

Places to stay with historical importance: The Old Mill; Schoone Oordt; Rothman Manor; Roosje van die Kaap (built in 1790); Moolmanshof (1798); De Companjie (1832); and La Sosta Guesthouse (1838).

What to do: Marloth Nature Reserve. You’ll need a day permit to hike or bike or picnic, but the office is always open, even on Christmas Day, as the receptionist tells me in a particularly South African mixture of ruefulness and pride. The Duiwelsbos trail to the waterfall is a steep but cool walk beside a stream sheltered by ancient forest.

Barrel & Blues eatery and music venue has garden space, a quirky atmosphere and TV screens if you fancy catching a game at the bar. We were told that at night it becomes more of a bikers’ hangout, but my friend noted when we spotted bikers hanging around outside at 7am that the vibe was more breakfast run than all-night hell-raising.

Under the Oaks Market is a wholesome way to spend a Saturday morning in the shade beside the Koornlands River and to grab a delicious roosterkoek.

Wildebraam Berry Estate. A favourite spot for jams, liqueurs, preserves and berries.

Field & Fork to hydrate and rest in the midst of Drostdy Museum complex.

Getting there: Swellendam is a straight shot on the N2, or you can take the Langeberg Meander along the R60 to or from Ashton and savour the mountain range up close.