About Wuppertal

Wuppertal, Cederberg

Wuppertal is something close to a breath of fresh air in the craggy wilderness of the Cederberg. In a sense the little whitewashed, thatched cottages of the Moravian mission station appear to have been lost in time.

One can easily cast one's mind back to 1830 when two Rhenish missionaries (it started out as a Rhenish mission station that was then transferred to the Moravian church in 1966) set up the little town that today is famous for its handmade ‘velskoene' or soft, leather shoes typically worn by farmers in the country. (Interestingly one of the missionaries who established the little village was by trade a shoemaker and it was he who originally set up the shoe factory).

Wuppertal lies hidden deep in the Cedarberg Mountains, 72 kilometres behind Clanwilliam. It lies in the heart of the barren wilderness that is the Cedarberg Mountains, far from civilisation, a series of three terraces of neatly thatched cottages.

Below in the fertile valley are a collection of gardens in which fruit and vegetables are grown. The town has a large church, a school, a little village store, post office and tea room. But little more, which accounts for its charm - although the obvious satellite dishes tell a different story. If you follow the track out of the village, across the Tra-Tra River, and head almost vertically up the hillside outside Wuppertal, there is a seriously beautiful view back over the village and valley - just one of many trails for both hikers and 4X4 vehicles in this part of the valley.