Durbanville Nature Reserve

Durbanville Nature Reserve is small enough to walk in an hour and important enough to have been protected on purpose. It covers six hectares on Racecourse Road in Durbanville, on the edge of a suburb that grew up around it, and it holds the meeting point of two critically endangered vegetation types: Swartland Shale Renosterveld and Cape Flats Sand Fynbos.

The reserve owes its existence to a single plant. A small population of Aristea lugens, an iris relative that had been thought extinct, was found on this ground, and the discovery made the case for conserving the last remnant of renosterveld left in the area. What survives is a fragment, but it is a working fragment rather than a display garden.

The City records roughly 241 plant species here. Three of them occur nowhere else but Cape Town and six are threatened with extinction, which is a remarkable density for a site this size. Spring is when that matters most to a visitor: renosterveld is unspectacular for much of the year and then turns over into flower, and the difference between a July walk and a September walk is considerable.

There is enough wildlife to keep a slow walk interesting. Cape sugarbirds, lesser double-collared sunbirds and Cape spurfowl are all recorded in the reserve, along with small grey mongoose and angulate tortoise. The endemic and vulnerable Cape rain frog is heard rather than seen, and only after rain.

Practically, the reserve is set up for short visits rather than long expeditions. There are walking trails and wheelchair-friendly pathways, and picnic sites at the main entrance and in the southern section. A small environmental education centre runs programmes for school groups and can be hired for functions and meetings, but anything organised needs to be arranged with reserve management in advance. Pets are not permitted.