A pre-Odyssey field trip

Western Cape Wineries,

Republic of South Africa

 harbour to mountain  on the edge
 line of cableway  Is Table Mountain the ultimate reverse panopticon - seeing and being seen all over town ?

BITWorld'99 was hosted by the University of Western Cape in conjunction with Manchester Metropolitan University from 30 June to 2 July 1999. Margaret Grieco and Len Holmes were among the delegates and Steve Little among the organisers. They took the opportunity to visit the Western Cape wineries.

Paarl - position and gesture

Above the KWV wineries and the town of Paarl stands the Afrikaner language monument, constructed in 1975 to commemorate the centenary of a movement which sought to establish the primacy of Dutch over English European settlement in Southern Africa. To do so the movement re-appropriated a Creole form of Dutch that developed among mixed race descendants of African slaves and indentured labourers and Europeans. Not long before it was repostioned as a symbol of resistance, this language had been seen as a threat to the purity of Dutch.

 Paarl Language Monument  view from the monument

DIT IST ONS ERNS

This is our intent - the inscription at the entrance to the monument dedicated by President Botha in 1975.

The monument overlooks the prison from which Nelson Mandela walked to freedom in 1991.

Huguenot Valley Girl or Armed Maiden ?

 huguenot monument end of the line 

Franschoek stands some distance from Paarl at the end of a branch rail line and at the foot of a dramatic pass. The town contains a Huguenot cemetery, museum and monument commemorating the former French Protestants who arrived via the Netherlands bringing the French wine making tradition with them. The monument evokes the prow of the migrant sailing ship, Joan of Arc and more homely skills. It was erected in 1948, the year the National Party gained power and the commencement of the apartheid project.

Regular tourist trains traverse the valley and Franschoek station is also a restaurant hosting weekend drag acts. Several of the Dutch style mansions of the surviving estates are preserved, though not all have been appropriated for tourist purposes.

 homestead  outbuilding
 New Beginnings in a New Bottle  While some potentials remain unrealised, on the Nelson's Creek Estate, a portion of the land has been passed to the African workers, along with the skills to develop their own products and vintage


Virtual field trips in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York:


Viticulture and winemaking began in the Hudson River valley, in what is now the United State of America, at about the same time as this occurred in the Cape. Although the California wine industry is perhaps the best-known area of winemaking, the Finger Lakes area in the north of New York State is now the site of an expanding viticulture and winemaking industry. Many vineyards and wineries provide visitors' centres, where wines may be tasted and bought. Members of the Odyssey Group visited a number of vineyards; the links below provide virtual access to those visits:

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