From cart to rail, how holidaying has changed The way we were

THERE are many definitions of the word “tourism”, but the simplest are probably “the practice of travelling for recreation” and “the commercial organisation of holidays and visits to places of interest”. Travelling for pleasure is impossible without time, money and the means of delegating business and domestic responsibilities, so it remained the prerogative of the upper and middle classes until the mid-19th century.

Government officials, military, naval officers and travellers who visited Cape Town during long voyages usually had the funds and the leisure to arrange private sightseeing tours to Constantia and Stellenbosch, or to climb Table Mountain.

For centuries, workers were not entitled to paid leave and were expected to recuperate from a 60-hour work week on the Sabbath and the holy days in the religious calendar. Shop assistants were luckier and generally entitled to an extra afternoon off, usually on Wednesdays.

Leisure hours were spent visiting friends and relatives, picnicking, or patronising taverns or places of low-cost entertainment. Ordinary people were accustomed to walking long distances, but the ground they could cover was limited. This changed with the railways. Cheap fares and excursion tickets enabled families to visit places they had never seen, including country villages and (in Britain in particular) the seaside.

The Cape’s first railway line reached Stellenbosch in the autumn of 1862 and was opened for public traffic on Saturday, May 3. The journey lasted an hour and 40 minutes, with single fares ranging from seven shillings for first class to three shillings and sixpence for third class.

However, the Cape Argus reporter covering the event was astonished to discover that the station was situated a mile beyond the town, thanks to the undue influence of a local farmer, G du Toit. An omnibus and a few carts waited outside the station to take passengers to town at a fare of sixpence each way.

Despite this disappointment, the privately-owned service proved popular, and on Emancipation Day (December 1, 1862) excursion tickets were made available to ex-slaves and their families, who left Cape Town at 6.30am in covered fourth-class carriages and were conveyed to Stellenbosch for a fare of two shillings and sixpence return.

Beach holidays originated when farmers packed their families into wagons and camped at the coast for several weeks during the summer. The men fished and swam while the women paddled and supervised the servants, who looked after the animals and did most of the work. Meanwhile, the children played games and ran wild.

Rude huts were sometimes erected to provide additional shelter. These formed the nucleus of small holiday settlements boasting a couple of private guest houses or a seaside hotel, forerunners of today’s luxury resort complexes and holiday apartment blocks.