Social Partner Programme

We are delighted to announce that as an MDC social partner you can now book your space on one or more of the exciting tours we’ve got lined up for you during the entire 2 and a half days of the conference.

Bookings should be made – and paid for – in advance through our tour operators Garth and Fiona Angus at Footsteps to Freedom http://footstepstofreedom.co.za. Just email them at [email protected], mentioning the MDC social partner programme and the particular tour(s) you are interested in and they’ll get back to you.

The respective fees for each tour are shown below (in South African Rand) together with a description and video relating to each tour. Please note that these fees are separate from the ‘Companion’ registration fee charged to social partners for attending the conference itself.

In the unlikely event that the tour you are booked on is cancelled (due to, say, adverse weather conditions or not enough participation) you will be fully refunded. However if you, yourself, wish to cancel your place on a particular tour once payment has been made, then your payment will unfortunately not be refunded.

So, this is what we’ve got in store for you:

Monday 1 November – Option 1 – Full Day Cape Winelands Guided Tour

We call it a tour of the winelands but there is so much more to this tour than tasting some of the world’s finest wines – although there is of course plenty of that!

The Cape Winelands is also known as the culinary capital of South Africa, with the picturesque Franschhoek Wine Valley in particular playing host to a plethora of world-class restaurants.

The Winelands is also an artist’s and photographer’s paradise, with its landscape of mountains and sloping green vineyards, dotted with pristine farms and manor houses – all bathing in a sparkling light that you almost have to reach out and touch in order to know for sure that it’s real – it’s that beautiful.

But back to the wine itself… boasting nearly 200 wine and grape producers, Stellenbosch was the first region to establish a formal route among the wineries – a route which has gone on to become one of the country’s six most popular tourist destinations.

More specifically, this is what we’ve got lined up for you on this full-day tour:

We pick you up from the Westin Hotel at 09.00 and one hour later we arrive at our first destination: Babylonstoren, one of the region’s oldest Cape Dutch farms. Here, we take a walk through the farm’s beautiful and diverse fruit and vegetable garden and then stop for our first wine tasting, combined with a bit of shopping.
Our next stop is Franschhoek (or ‘French Corner’), where you have a chance to walk through this quaint little town, stop off at Le Lude estate to taste some Methode Cap Classique sparkling wine (made in the traditional French way), and enjoy lunch at Roca Restaurant on the Dieu Donné Wine Farm.
Then we’re off to Stellenbosch, for a walk around the historic town centre, with a chance to do some more shopping, before returning to the Westin Hotel by about 17.00.

Minimum 10 participants – maximum 15.

R2,030 per person (approx. $137) – including two-course lunch and wine tasting (excludes beverages with lunch).

Monday 1 November – Option 2 – Full Day Cape Peninsula Guided Tour

The Cape Peninsula is a generally rocky peninsula of 52km in length that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the northern end is Table Mountain, overlooking the city of Cape Town, and at the southern end is the Cape Point Nature Reserve.

This full-day tour takes you all the way down to the Cape Point promontory, while stopping to enjoy some wonderful attractions along the way.

We pick you up from the Westin Hotel at 08.30 and head to Chapman’s Peak Drive – one of the most spectacular marine drives in the world. Affectionately known as ‘Chappies’ by the locals, you can take in breathtaking views of rocky coastlines that drop into the ocean, picturesque fishing harbours and sandy white beaches that go on forever. So don’t forget your camera!
Next up is the penguin colony at Boulders Beach, Simon’s Town, which is home to a unique and endangered land-based colony of around 2,000 African penguins – one of only a few colonies in the world. You can get close to these cute little guys thanks to a system of boardwalks and a viewing area.
We then make our way further down the Peninsula towards Cape Point where we stop for lunch at the Two Oceans Restaurant. Watch out for baboons, antelope, zebra and ostrich!
If time permits, on the way back to town, we stop off at the quirky little fishing village of Kalk Bay, home to an eclectic mix of historic buildings, cobbled streets, bohemian bric-a-brac shops, vintage bookstores, art and antique galleries, quaint cafés and creative locals. No wonder Kalk Bay was voted one of the 12 Coolest Cities Around the World by Forbes magazine in 2018.
We aim to be back at the Westin Hotel by 17.00.

Minimum 10 participants – maximum 15.

R2,870 per person (approx. $194) – including two-course lunch and entrance fees (excludes beverages with lunch).

Tuesday 2 November – Option 1 – Half Day Mandela Footsteps to Freedom City Walking Tour

You will embark on a path of discovery through the city of Cape Town, walking in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela, to get a feeling of his life and what he had to endure.

The tour begins at 09.00 from the Westin Hotel with a drive through the famous Adderley Street right in the city centre.
We then drive to District Six, a former inner-city residential area from where over 60,000 inhabitants were forcibly removed during the apartheid regime, and where many buildings were razed to the ground, leaving large patches of wasteland. In 2004, President Mandela ‘handed the keys over’ to the first returning residents of District Six, and about 1,600 families were subsequently resettled there.

Then we drive to the Castle of Good Hope, which played an integral part in the government affairs of colonial South Africa from the 17^th century. Members of various royal families were incarcerated at the castle when they fought against land dispossession, so it doesn’t have a legacy of good memories. But Mandela, as founding president of a democratic South Africa, preferred to preserve the castle as a reminder that we must not repeat the errors of the past.
We are then dropped off at Greenmarket Square to continue our journey by foot, to the Mandela Rhodes Precinct. This is where we find the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, of which Mandela was the founder and patron, and which aims to build exceptional leadership capacity by providing postgraduate study opportunities to students throughout Africa.
From there we walk to St George’s Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in Southern Africa and – due to its proximity to parliament – a frequent refuge and source of inspiration for politicians. It was here where a memorial service for the late Mandela (or Madiba as he was affectionately called) was held, and where the bells rang out 95 times to mark each year of his life.
Next stop is the Company’s Garden. The gardens were created in the 1600s to supply ships with fresh fruit and vegetables, and these days provide beautiful examples of local plant species, roses and traditional medicinal plants. The grey squirrels that make the huge trees their home are only too happy to pose for photos, often on your lap, in return for peanuts which can be bought from street vendors. Within the gardens is located the Tuynhuys building, which began life as a garden shed, but which is now a sprawling building, used as the office of the President when he is in Cape Town. Madiba spent many hours there, drafting South Africa’s constitution and leading the country to its bright future.
From there, the coach will pick us up at the Planetarium and we aim to be back at the Westin Hotel by 13.00.

Minimum 10 participants – maximum 15.

R615 per person (approx. $42) – including entrance fees (lunch not included in this tour)

Tuesday 2 November – Option 2 – Half Day Bo-Kaap and Cape Malay Cooking

This wonderful tour takes you on a journey into the life, food and culture of the Cape Malay people living in the colourful area of Bo-Kaap, while offering you a hands-on practical lesson in Cape Malay cooking.

The tour begins at 09.00 with a walk around Bo-Kaap, which is situated on the slopes of Signal Hill above the city centre (Bo-Kaap actually means ‘above the Cape’ in Afrikaans). Bo-Kaap is the historical centre of Cape Malay culture in Cape Town. With its cobbled roads and (very!) brightly painted houses, the area has succeeded in preserving a people and their culture.
We then drop in at the Atlas Spice Trading store, where your senses will be assailed by different colours, textures and bold, fragrant smells.
Then comes the cooking class where you get to eat what you cook! Cape Malay cuisine has had a major influence on South African food and is considered by some to be SA’s national cuisine. It is spicy and aromatic in flavour, yet mild. Prominent ingredients are fresh coriander, garlic, ginger, curry leaves and an array of spices. Bon appétit!
After lunch, we aim to be back at the Westin Hotel by 13.00.

Minimum 10 participants – maximum 15.

R2,050 per person (approx. $138) – including lunch and entrance fees (excludes beverages with lunch).

Wednesday 3 November – Option 1 – Half Day Kirstenbosch Gardens and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA)

One tour, two different sides of Cape Town: natural beauty meets cutting-edge art.

We head off from the Westin Hotel at 09.00 for a tour of Kirstenbosch Gardens, widely acclaimed as one of the great botanic gardens of the world. Few gardens can match the sheer grandeur of the setting, nestled as they are against the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. The 528 hectare gardens feature 22,000 indigenous plants, with paved walkways, and even a tree canopy walkway, called the Boomslang (meaning tree snake). The Boomslang takes the visitor from the forest floor into and through the trees and bursts out above the canopy, giving spectacular panoramic vistas of the surrounding mountains and gardens.
Then we head back to the Cape Town Waterfront, and a curated tour of the Zeitz MOCAA Museum, the largest museum of contemporary African art in the world. The very distinctive museum building was constructed from the conversion of Cape Town’s 57-metre high historic Grain Silo, which was decommissioned in 2001. The original structure, consisting of 42 densely-packed concrete cylinders has however been preserved, resulting in a building which is actually an art-form in itself.
We aim to be back at the Westin Hotel by 13.00.

Minimum 10 participants – maximum 15.

R1,330 per person (approx. $90) – including entrance fees (lunch not included in this tour).

Wednesday 3 November – Option 2 – Half Day Robben Island

08:15 coach departure (strict timing)

Not that it needs much introduction, but Robben Island (or ‘seal island’ in Dutch) is a desolate outcropping situated 8km away from the mainland, in front of Table Mountain, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his life in prison. As a result of his long incarceration there, Robben Island has come to symbolise the triumph of the human spirit over adversity, suffering and injustice, and it is visited every year by thousands of people eager to pay homage to Madiba.

The most powerful part of the tour is a visit to Mandela’s cell, a 2-by-3-metre room where a bulb burned day and night over his head. As Mandela recalled in his book Long Walk to Freedom, ‘I could walk the length of my cell in three paces. When I lay down, I could feel the wall with my feet and my head grazed the concrete at the other side.’

Today, Robben Island is a World Heritage Site and museum.

The tour begins at the Nelson Mandela Gateway at the Cape Town Waterfront with a multimedia exhibition, after which guests take the ferry for a scenic trip to the island. Once on Robben Island itself, the tour is guided by a former political prisoner of the island, for unique and incomparable insights into the island’s history.
We must leave promptly from the Westin Hotel at 08.15, in time to make the ferry which leaves at 09.00.
We aim to be back at the Westin Hotel by 13.00.

Minimum 10 participants – maximum 15.

R2,065 per person (approx. $139) – including Robben Island fees (lunch not included in this tour).