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Newsletter

April 2003

RUWAMI Nature Reserve

Our private nature reserve was registered in May 2000 The Reserve comprises 425 ha, mainly on the top of our mountain, accessible via a windy road, suitable for 4 x 4 vehicles. A large portion lies in a declared water catchment (wasserschutzgebiet) area. Alien vegetation has been cleared over the last few years, partially in cooperation with Cape Nature Conservation under a special “Fynbos Working for Water” restoration program.

• Restoration of the natural indigenous flora
• Increasing water run-off from clearing thirsty alien trees
• Providing jobs for unskilled and poor rural people to clear such areas and to learn new skills

The name “RUWAMI” is a combination of the names of our founders, RUth and WAlter MIddelmann who bought Honingklip farm in 1948 as a weekend retreat. All the business activities take place on the lower slopes of the farm, with 80 ha of plantations and extensive facilities for drying, bleaching, dyeing and packing, amongst others.

It has been truly gratifying to witness how the natural vegetation has returned where pines and eucalyptus have stood for so long. It is amazing that seed that has been dormant for 10 -20 years has regenerated; creating mass displays of many Fynbos species.

Ruwami has become a place for the family to “get away from it all”. The panoramic vistas are truly spectacular, with views to the ocean to the South, the Hottentots Holland mountains, in the direction of Cape Town to the North-West, and wheat-fields towards the East. The cave, situated at the highest point of the farm, has meanwhile become a favoured place for “sundowners” and specially occasions with family and friends.

We have always allowed botanists and scientists access to the farm but now Ruwami is also open to the general public for walking trails that criss-cross the farm and the reserve. In time we intend to signpost the Reserve properly – time permitting. We invite you to enjoy Ruwami sights on line in the hope that we may one day show you around personally.

₁Fynbos: A popular name for the indigenous and unique Flora Capensis, one of the 6 floral kingdoms on earth, being the smallest kingdom in size but particularly species rich, with app. 8500 plant species. Fynbos is recognised by the three dominant plant types: proteas, ericas, restioids (decorative grasses) and geophytes (bulb and cormous plants)

Our new Bleaching, Dyeing and Preserving facility

After the extensive fire damage to our facility last April, at last our newly built operation is up and running. The building was redesigned after thorough analysis of our requirements to provide optimum workflow and efficiency. This has resulted in building two large preserving tunnels (in order to control temperature and humidity) with specially designed drying space accessible from both the processing and packing sides.

Special drying rooms to utilise natural heat created by the sun, have been built into the new building for both the bleaching and dyeing sections. The building further incorporates a central packing area and dedicated shipping space for the local market, dyeing area as well as office, laboratory and a large canteen.

Although not quite finished at the time, we held our end-of-year staff party in the building in mid-December 2002.

We are now in the final stage of tidying up, fencing the area and completing the access roads.

Drying and Packing Department

As part of improving quality control and efficiency we have enlarged the main wet flower handling and bulk packing area by moving the shrink pack and drilling sections across to our main shipping shed. This has also resulted in each department having their own tea room/rest area which has been very well received by the staff – big smiles all round.

Production

The new season has started of well with excellent quality Plumosum, Salignum and other cones being harvested earlier than last year. The first Nerifolia buds and Repens flowers are also being harvested. There have been some major fires due to a dry hot summer which has drastically reduced the crop of Pan reed which will consequently be in extreme short supply. A large area of Sabulosum has also been burnt but fortunately we have found very good quality Ugi cone branches which can be used a substitute.