Picking Strawberries at Polkadraai Farm in Stellenbosch (2016-10-20)

When September rolls around this year, the super popular Polkadraai Farm will once again throw open its doors – and if you have kids then you pretty much automatically have a new excursion option added to the always burgeoning Cape Town weekend to-do list.

Chantelle and I took the girls to the famous Stellenbosch based Polkadraai strawberry farm last year October, though we abandoned our first attempt at a visit thanks to the flood of people picking strawberries on a Saturday afternoon, turning around and settling for snacking at nearby Asara’s fabulous deli instead. (We also then stopped in at the excellent Vergenoed market to watch the now famous duck parade! More on that later.)

Anyway, a couple of days later, we tried again, this time heading out to farmland Stellenbosch mid-week, a ploy that worked perfectly as there was almost no one else in the strawberry field when we arrived!

The process is simple. Enter the wonderfully colourful and inviting little shop at the start, purchase some buckets, listen to the handful of picking guidelines, and then head out into the field and pick some strawberries.

(Tip: This is one of those more unusual instances where you pay for the container and not by weight of fruit picked, meaning that your picking is dictated entirely by how many containers you choose to buy up front. Or rather, on how many containers your kids force you to take!)

The fields are dotted with loads of funky (or as I would put it, disheveled) scarecrows, and with the strawberries being grown on straight, elevated strips, strawberry picking is pretty easy going – though I must say that I was rather surprised at just how much and how quickly both Emily and Jessica seemed to get into it.

The strawberries themselves are of course delicious and, important to note, the filling of the buckets happens rather quickly if you don’t make a concerted effort to take more… leisurely strolls down the picking line.

Pleasingly, Polkadraai Farm seems to have recognised its role as such a popular family friendly excursion destination, and as such has made quite a nice effort to try and expand on the outing experience by building a putt putt (mini golf) course (love the tongue in cheek name – The Polkadraai Country Club!), a food court, installing a big playground area, and offering the always popular pony and tractor rides.

In other words, it really is a family outing that is hard to knock. No wonder it is such a popular attraction come season then!

So yes, the girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves – as did we – which I guess then means that this season we had better make another stop (or two) there.

And yes. As you may have suspected, I took plenty of pictures on the day!