West Coast South Africa

WEST COAST SOUTH AFRICA

We spent a good part of the day organizing, packing up our place in Stellenbosch, driving back to Cape Town, dropping off our rental van and picking up the motorhome that we will be travelling with for the duration of the trip. By the time we got on the road, it was late afternoon of the Thursday of Easter weekend, and we had no accommodation booked. Our original plan was to head to the Cedarberg Mountains, but a few phone calls to camp locations told us the long weekend was completely booked. As fate would have it, we decided to stick along the coast and found a great beachside camping area at Yzerfontein, at least 150 km north of Cape Town (slowly making some progress North). At the site we were able to enjoy the last of the sun on the beach, with the kids jumping off the sand dunes, and marveling at the fine, white sand and long beach coastline.

The next day, we headed north to West Coast National Park, which encompasses the clear, blue waters of the Langebaan Lagoon and is home to an enormous migratory bird colonies. We drove up both arms of the Lagoon, and stopped at the information centre to learn more about the other species within the park, including the six venomous snakes (one that spits “the spitting Cobra”), turtles, ostriches, gemsbok, springbok. We also read and saw “Eve’s footprint”, a footprint found along the shoreline that dates back 117,000 years ago. The centre also has a Cape Dutch building dating back to 1744 (which houses a resturant and curio shop). We hiked out over the Lagoon, to one of the many bird houses, that have been established along the lagoon shoreline, and sat in the hut pretending we knew something about birdwatching. The land and huts were purchased through a donation by Elizabeth Harding, daughter of the Rhodes Fruit Company – England, who came to South Africa, fell in love with the land, and lived in Cape Town till she died in the early 1990s. The kids were not so enthused about the bird watching, but enjoying seeing the Flamingos and the African Spoonbill (which Anna thought was also in one of the Pixar films).

We headed further up the coast and stumbled into Langebaan, a true west coast surfers paradise, and luckily found accommodation for two nights. Langebaan is a surfers dream, large sandy beaches, steady surf and lots of wind. There is windsurfing, kiteboarding, surfing, great sailing, and fishing. With the skies clear and the surf up, we felt right at home. We watched in awe at the kite surfers and the boys rented some windsurfing gear (Cape Town Sports) and John spent a few hours teaching Ben and David the sport. Windsurfing is not a sport that is learnt in an afternoon, so needless to say there were some frustrating moments. We enjoyed some good seafood at the Driftwood Beach house, and bought some local Cape Yellowfin to “braai” ourselves. I don’t think we have mentioned all the talk about the braai (which is essentially the open-wood barbeque). This seems to be a huge part of the South African culture, and certainly is the way to entertain here. We are slowly getting accustomed to some of the Afrikaans language and routines, including the biltong (dried meat), boerewors (BBQ sausages), potjiekos (pot food) and Dankie (thank you!). David has thoroughly enjoying the African element of no shoes, and walks to mos places without footwear.  Most SA’s speak the 2 languages fluently, so getting around has been easy and the kids have made friends everywhere we land. We would certainly recommend Langebaan to anyone who loves sea sports and beach life, and there seems to be a lot of vacation rental houses along the beach and walking distance to the town. We ended our stay on the coast with an Easter Sunday catamaran tour and enjoyed the coastal view from the water.