Marchelle van Zyl emerges from the Montagu Country Hotel on a crisp autumn morning, wearing a newsboy cap, a tie and blazer, khaki trousers tucked into yellow socks and a pair of tan velskoens. Not your typical cycling attire, but this is not a typical cycle tour. It's the weekend of the Eroica festival – an Italian-themed celebration of all things to do with vintage bikes – and Marchelle is about to show our group of old-school afficionados around her town.
She leads us into Bath Street outside the hotel and we set off towards Montagu's imposing Dutch Reformed church, built in the neogothic style by the trader Joseph Barry in the middle 1800s (nearby Barrydale carries his name) and paid for by the church itself after selling property and taxing the landowners.
We gather nearby and Marchelle begins her tour with a tale about a cat named Heather who had an almost supernatural ability to sense when someone needed comfort. Heather roamed the streets in the 1990s, popping in to cheer up the sick andto have the municipality erect a “cat crossing” sign to warn motorists about the caring feline. The sign is still there today.
