I have been writing about tourism for far more years than I would comfortably admit, and one factor has emerged again and again and again:  the most attractive and intriguing tourism product is invariably as a result of some dedicated individual or couple (perhaps eccentric, perhaps fey, perhaps just plain mad) who has stumbled upon an odd-ball pursuit, has developed it into a showpiece, and now draws people from all over the world to share this obsession in a niche activity or place that never existed before. 

The point of similarity to all these tourism mountain-tops is that the individual is inseparable from the idea. Other people might follow, but without a champion the project would never have taken off.  So you had David Rattray with a derelict family farm near Isandlwana and a burning interest in the Anglo-Zulu War: the result was the entire industry of battlefield tourism.  You get passionately egg-headed scientists, zoologists and botanists who find themselves veering into tourism: and the result is frog tours, flower tours, fish tours, chameleon tours and the like.  Magpie-like collectors create little museums and invite people to share their curiosity about toys, farm tools, magnets, beer mats – the list is endless.  The individual is so intensely interested in the subject that this enthusiasm spills over to the visitor.  And then there is a generous dollop of larger-than-lifehood and joie de vivre, which makes the whole experience otherworldly and unique. Well, here’s another one of those:  Soekershof, near Robertson in the Western Cape, is a shrine to - - wait for it - - - cactus! The story began in 1910 with a farmer called Martinus Malherbe, who – for reasons which are now lost to history - began to collect succulents and cacti from all over the world.  He created gardens and rockeries and paths and a nursery, and is known (only to a few, rather obsessive, people) as the father of all succulent knowledge in South Africa.  When he and his wife died, unfortunately his passion died with him.  But it is hard to kill a succulent, and so his plants thrived until the passion found new owners in the form of a Dutch and German couple called Yvonne and Herman.  These two bought Soekershof (Seeker’s Court) ten years ago and immediately poured all their imagination and European precision into creating a magical garden of strange-looking plants. The 10-hectare plot has 10 different gardens, each with an unusual theme.  There is something fundamentally appealing about a cactus anyway.  Either the upright cactus holds its arms up as if surrendering (or doing the Mexican Wave); the round ones look like sofa-cushions that have been surprised sneaking off to the fridge for a snack.   When you take these alien shapes and put them together into patterns and waves, the result just has to be something special.  And when a cactus flowers, the whole world knows about it: the contrast between the hostile plant and its delicate, transparent flower makes for a new kind of magic.

Soekershof hit the international headlines in 2003 when a US spy satellite identified a ‘suspicious installation that looked like a secret defence complex’ in the Western Cape.  One intelligence flurry later, it was concluded that what the satellite had seen was the winding and alien shape of Soekershof’s many mazes.  Other visitors tend to be more lyrical:  the usually-dry Royal Horticultural Society called Soekershof ‘the most beautiful succulent garden in the Southern Hemisphere.’  Other comments are poems of appreciation:  "...Believe me, it is pure magic that awaits you. Through the finger-maze, the ghost of Malherbe, past the guardian angel ... amazed by the beauty and completely absorbed into the legendary world of Klaas Voogds..." said one, while others raved about the sparkle and joy that comes to life in these gardens. But – as they say in the adverts – that’s not all.  Herman and Yvonne have also started a project called Land Art – local wood and wire craftsmen fashion art for the gardens, as well as the curios and mementoes for their shop on the farm itself.  These can range from a 2,5 metre wire baobab tree (with a counterpart in the SA embassy in Berlin), to tiny jewellike wooden boxes for keepsakes.  Resident artist Joey Mussindo also invented an elf-like ‘Solar Umbrella’ shaped like a bird or a butterfly which visitors can personalise. As word spreads about Soekershof through enthusiastic reviews in Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide, and the wonderful photographs on its website www.soekershof.com and ecstatic recommendations from neighbouring guest houses, this is another quirky and memorable tourist attraction to add to the Cape’s famous Route 62.  May others take inspiration from these two eccentric (or perhaps just plain mad) Europeans and follow their own passions - for the edification of our tourism industry.  PS – Soekershof also calls itself the Green Cathedral of South Africa, and has a rather more airy-fairy website here #http://soekershof.typepad.com/