6 Best Sights in Darling, The Western Cape and Winelands

If you love culture and history, you'll love !Khwa ttu, a nature reserve and education center on a former wheat farm. This is a rare opportunity to learn about the San people and their history. You can do a self-guided tour, but it makes sense to pay extra and take one of the themed tours with a knowledgeable guide. Options include tea tasting, game drives, and a tour that teaches about San tracking skills. A laid-back restaurant serves local food and wine, and simple accommodations are available. Visitors can take part in numerous outdoor activities, including hiking and biking.

Launched in 2010, Darling Brew has become one of the Western Cape's most-loved craft beer brands, and its walls are now lined with awards. The beers can be found at many local restaurants and bars, but it's more fun to visit the microbrewery. You can sample craft beers in the tasting room, which also serves typically South African snacks and meals. Some of the favorites include the Slow Beer, a refreshing, golden lager, and the Bone Crusher, a Belgian-style witbier. There's a kids' tasting option and a great play area for little ones.

This large producer makes wines under a number of labels. Look out for the Premium range as well as the award-winning Darling Cellars Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine. Other suggestions include the Reserve Bush Vine Sauvignon Blanc, with notes of cut grass, passion fruit, green figs, traces of guava on the nose, and a zingy aftertaste. Don't miss out on the Sweet Darling range, a selection of white, red, and rosé wines made from local grapes. It's all good, drinkable stuff at very affordable prices. In addition to standard tastings, there are two food and wine pairing options and a kids' juice pairing—book ahead for these experiences.

Former dairy farmer Peter Pentz had enough of getting up at 4 am to milk his cows, so together with his son, Nick, he turned instead to grapes at Groote Post Vineyard. The large, environmentally sensitive winery got off to a fantastic start when its maiden 1999 Sauvignon Blanc was judged one of the best in the Cape, and Groote Post has been winning awards ever since. Try the Groote Post Kapokberg Chardonnay and the Inheritance Pinot Noir with notes of cherry and raspberry. The restaurant, Hilda's Kitchen, is an excellent choice for lunch and makes scrumptious picnic baskets filled with local cheeses and cured meats, quiches, and chocolate brownies (order these in advance). Game drives through the unique renosterveld ("rhino vegetation" in Afrikaans) are offered during the summer; expect to see wildebeest, giraffes, and a range of antelope. Advanced bookings are essential.

From August to early October, the wonderful Tienie Versfeld Wildflower Reserve is an unpretentious, uncommercial little gem showing off a range of South African veld plants. Look out for the geophytes—plants uniquely adapted for this type of environment—which come in a striking array of sizes and colors.

As you head out of Cape Town on the N1 or R27 on your way up the coast, it's easy to whiz past the tiny whitewashed settlement of Mamre on the R304. But it's worth turning off here to check out the old thatch buildings that made up the Moravian Mission Station, founded in 1808. The church here is almost always open, but phone ahead to make sure. All the buildings dating from this period have been restored and declared national monuments. It is signposted in Afrikaans: Morawiese Kerk. Unfortunately, the rest of the town is unlovely and crippled with the usual ills of unemployment and poverty.