Today, I headed down to city hall with my husband and 6 of my 7 children to take part in the 5km Slave route challenge.
About the slave route challenge
The Slave route challenge is a Cape Town race. One rich in heritage and historical significance.
The event traces the old ‘ slave route‘ and honours those amazing people who physically built Cape Town.
Bringing together a diversity of people from all walks of life, the slave trade route offer’s a variety of races.
- 21km marathon
- 10km run
- 10km big walk
- 5km fun run/ walk
The first Slave route challenge was run in 2011 and 2020 celebrates 10 years of this unique race.
Route
The full Slave run route starts at The City Hall, through District six, Gardens, The company gardens, whale street, Bo- Kaap, Seapoint, Green point and the CBD before heading back down Darling street, through the Castle of Good Hope to finish on the Grande Parade.
This route was selected to highlight the historical landmarks along the way.
Some of the Landmarks you will see along this route are:
- the whipping post ( where the slaves would be whipped),
- the hurling slave pump ( where they had to pump water for their masters),
- the company bell ( which rang to call the slaves),
- Gallows hill ( where they were executed) ,
- the Castle ( where the slaves were tortured and imprisoned)
- and the Slave tree plaque ( where slaves were sold)
In Bo- kaap runners and walkers can enjoy a traditional Cape Malay koeksister.
Children
All children need to be accompanied by an adult at all times.
We weren’t required to register for Hamish at 3 years old but did to ensure he too could get a medal.
Our run
As a family we signed up for the 5km ( mostly because most of us are rather unfit and also because that way we could run/walk with Hamish)
Waking everyone up was most likely the hardest part of the morning.
As we had checked routes and parking the night before, we had no struggle with leaving home on time nor finding parking.
Waiting the hour for the 5km race wasn’t that bad and everyone kept themselves busy. ( Big families come in handy at these events – we bring our own crowd)
After the hundredth selfie, our race began.
The route itself was well marshalled and not at all crowded.
It’s one of the most scenic routes I’ve done and was really enjoyable.
Hamish walked about 3km of the 5km, with big brother Shaun carrying him quite a bit of the way.
For R40 a person we had a wonderful family morning out, got some exercise, enjoyed a refreshing coke at the finish line, ( somehow I missed the koeksister) and collected the first of our run medals for 2020
We also discovered on the race number are free entry to both the District six museum and The Castle.
On collecting our race numbers yesterday we recieved tickets to visit the Jewish museum, so we will take full advantage of enjoying Cape Town’s museums this month.
This truly was a lot of fun, and I was amazed to hear that 9000 registered to run for today.