Graafwater

Graafwater lying roughly midway between Clanwilliam and Lambert’s Bay, was established after the railway junction was built in 1910 between Cape Town and Bitterfontein to serve the transportation of agricultural products of the Clanwilliam area and the seafood products of Lambert’s Bay.

The town owes its name to the fact that water could only be obtained here by digging wells or drilling boreholes.

The town was further developed by the local Dutch Reformed Church of Leipoldtville. A few years later Graafwater Dutch Reformed Church formed its own congregation. Leipoldtville was named after Friederich Leipoldt, the then minister at Clanwilliam and father of poet and author C.Louis Leipoldt.

After good winter rains, the sandveld to the south of Graafwater is transformed into a colourful tapestry of spring flowers. Among the flowering splendours are the yellow rapuis (Euryops), a variety of daisies, sporrie (Heliophyla), mesembs or vygies and viooltjies (Lachenalia).

It is popular with hikers and bird-watchers.

One can reach the Heerenlogement (‘gentleman’s lodging’) which is a cave found about 25 kilometers away from Graafwater on the road north to Vredendal. This cave was used by travelers as overnight accommodation during the eighteenth century. The walls of this rock shelter were used by travelers to carve their names or initials on them. About 170 carvings have been counted in this ‘visitors book’.

Cape Governor Hendrik Swellengrebel passed this way in 1737 and later wrote an account of this shelter. He mentioned a wild fig tree growing out of a cleft at the back of the cave and it can still be found to this day. This cave has been declared a national monument.