From Heidelberg to Mossel Bay and on to the Storms River is a necklace of bays, beaches, cliffs and rocky capes strung together along a line of pounding white surf. The mountain ranges crowd the shoreline and with plenty of rain on the peaks there is a plentiful water supply to the narrow coastal terrace. Here every square meter of soil seems to nourish some plant growth. The terrace is covered in so dense a jumble of trees and flowering plants that a cultivated garden would pale into insignificance in comparison.
This stretch of coastline is the Garden Route a region of eternal freshness and greenery. The climate is mild and equable. From the time of its first discovery by man this coastal terrace has delighted visitors. The French explorer, François Le Vaillant, passed this way in the 1780s, and the description he has left might well apply today - ‘The land bears the name Outeniqua, which in the Hottentot tongue means “a man laden with honey”. The flowers grow there in millions, the mixture of pleasant scents which arises from them, their colour, their variety, the pure and fresh air which one breathes there, all make one stop and think nature has made an enchanted abode of this beautiful place’.
Seldom cooler than 20 degrees the coastal waters teem with game fish. Divers find a magic world of brilliantly coloured sea plants, molluscs and vast shoals of little fish. Suddenly, a rocky shoreline will give way to a secluded, sandy beach. Victoria Bay is renowned as one of the world’s best surfing beaches. The rivers, deeply stained with the amber colour of the soil, have lovely stretches navigable by small boats. The chain of lakes and the great lagoon at Knysna cheerfully lend themselves to swimming, boating and fishing. The wild flowers and the high forests offer long cool drives down tunnels of shade beneath the trees.
Along the Garden Route is little to harm man other than his own folly. For the continent of Africa this is indeed a rare pleasure. There are no malarial mosquitoes, no bilharzia worms in the rivers, no crocodiles or other predatory animals, only leopards, which keep to themselves in the mountains. A few elephants still survive in the depths of the Knysna Forest, but are seldom seen.
At some time or other, nearly every South African with the means to go on holiday spends some time on this coast. For visitors to the country it is one of the highlights of a complete tour. The region is excellently served by roads and has a delightful branch railway from George to Knysna still (and it is hoped for years to come) worked by steam locomotives.
Albertina - The bulk of South Africa’s ochre, a natural earth used for colouring paint, cement and linoleum, is mined in Albertina and much of it is exported. Xhosa women have for centuries used ochre to stain their costumes a handsome golden colour. The opencast pits from which ochre is extracted are a colourful feature of the landscape. Kaolin, a porcelain and medicinal clay, is also mined here. Albertina was founded in 1900 and named in memory of the Reverend J. R. Albertyn, a Dutch Reformed minister.
Calitzdorp - The sienna red stone church of Calitzdorp, with its quaintly capped tower, can be seen for some kilometers along the road from Oudtshoorn. In crossing the plain of the Little Karoo the road passes many ostrich farms, where the birds can be seen wandering around, feeding on the lucerne fields, sitting on their eggs or watching the passing traffic, their chickens huddled together in compact little groups.
Calitzdorp is the terminus of the railway branch line from Oudtshoorn and the centre of an irrigated farming industry. The site was originally a farm owned by the Calitz family and was called Buffelsvlei (‘buffalo marsh’).
Cango Caves - The Cango Caves are one of the great wonders of the world. Within this cave system is a fabulous collection of speleothems and the bizarre dripatone formations. The caves were discovered by man in prehistoric times. The entrance was used as a home by Bushmen and the walls were painted by them with pictures of game animals. But without portable light, the Bushmen would have been unable to explore far into the caves. For centuries most of the secret treasures of the caves were known only to hoards of bats. The petrified skeletons of such bats sheathed in transparent calcite can be found in the ‘bats’ graveyard’ of the caves.
In 1780 a herdsman stumbled into the entrance to the caves while following a wounded buck. He told his master, Barend Appel, of the mysterious opening. Barend Appel was a tutor and farm manager for a local landowner named Van Zyl. Barend Appel visited the caves and reported them to his boss, Van Zyl and soon Van Zyl led the first expedition deep into the caves. With their flickering torches Van Zyl and his men found their way to the first great chamber. This hall was named Van Zyl’s Hall and is 98 meters long by 49 meters wide and 55 meters high. This remains one of the greatest treasure chests of nature. From every nook and cranny one can see glimmer stalactites (hanging columns) and stalagmites (which grow upwards) and also helictites (which grow in all directions).
Van Zyl was lowered to the floor of the next mammoth chamber and gazed in awe at what was to become known as Cleopatra’s Needle, 9 metres high and at least 150 000 years old. How much further Van Zyl continued is unknown.
George - The English novelist Anthony Trollope praised George in 1877 as ‘the prettiest village on the face of the earth’. Overlooked by the George Peak (1370 meters) and Cradock Peak (1583 meters) of the Outeniqua Mountains, George nestles on a coastal plateau in a setting of parks and gardens. Flowers seem to bubble over the walls of every garden and trees grow wherever man has failed to cut them down. Only 8 kilometers from the sea and with an adequate rainfall, balmy climate and altitude of 226 meters, George has the best of several worlds. It is the principal town of the Garden Route.
Founded in 1811, it was named after George III. It grew as an administrative, communications and timber centre. One of the oak trees which were planted along the streets during these early years has been proclaimed a national monument. Because of the widespread destruction of George’s indigenous forests in 1936 the government prohibited the felling of trees in the town for 200 years. The decision has ensured the preservation of stinkwood and yellow wood trees.
George became a municipality in 1837 and in 1850 Bishop Robert Gray, founder of the Diocesan College for Boys in Cape Town, consecrated the town’s St. Mark’s Cathedral. Among other old buildings here is the Town House, built in 1847 at a cost of £478. The George Museum has South Africa’s largest collection of old gramophones, all in working order. Other displays include the skeleton of a whale stranded on Buffelsbaai and over 75 mounted horns of the antelopes of South Africa.
From the town two dramatic steam train journeys can be taken. The main railway line from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth crosses the Outeniqua Mountains through what is widely regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful railway passes. In 25 kilometers the railway climbs by means of zigzags, tunnels and cuttings to an altitude of 715 meters before descending into the Little Karoo. The second railway journey from George is along the branch line to Knysna, through tunnels and forests, across lakes and cliffs overlooking the sea. The climax of the arrival in Knysna, with a long approach by bridge over the lagoon, is unforgettable.
Goukamma Nature Reserve - The coastal dunes and the estuary of the Goukamma River are the resort of many water-birds, including ducks, geese, plovers, gulls, kingfishers and dikkops. Trails lead to most parts of the reserve established here.
Groot Brakrivier - Two ‘brak’ (‘brackish’) rivers, the Klein Brak and the Groot Brak, reach the sea around Mossel Bay and both have holiday resorts on their lower reaches. Groot Brakrivier has a lagoon at its mouth and a cluster of bungalows built on an islet. The town was founded by the Searle family in 1859 and the footwear and timber industry they established here still thrives. The font in the Spanish-style church was made from the post of a turnpike built by the first Searle to settle here.
Herold’s Bay - The cliffs along the Garden Route occasionally pull back to form a sandy, sheltered bay. Herold’s Bay is an example of such bays. The cliffs on either side fall steeply into the sea. The beach is well sanded and has a sea-water swimming pool. A ridge overlooking the bay is the site of the village.
Knysna - ‘This fair land is the gift of God.’ So reads the motto on Knysna’s coat of arms. It bears testimony to the pride local people have in this resort of great scenic beauty. A name sounding like Knysna to Europeans was given to the river by the Hottentots. Scholars offer several translations of the Hottentot term such as the ’place of wood’, the ‘fern leaves’ or ‘straight down’. The latter presumably referring to the two steep sandstone cliffs known as The Heads. The naval brig Emu foundered between The Heads in 1817. The rescue ship Podargus succeeded in negotiating the gap and during the next hundred years many timber ships followed. Today the mouth to the sea is deep enough to allow the passage of medium-sized ships.
More than 200 species of fish are found in the lagoon. Oysters, of which Knysna is a major supplier, exist in considerable numbers. The lagoon is also the home of a rare sea-horse, Hippocampus capersis. Knysna is loved by anglers and divers encounter innumerable forms of marine life.
Mossel Bay - The bay is overlooked by the Langeberg and Outeniqua mountain ranges. It has sandy beaches and in season are teaming with bathers. Prehistoric man discovered rich stores of seafood along the shore. Mussels and oysters flourished and it was from these molluscs that the Dutch name of Mossel (‘mussel’) was given to the bay. For passing ships it was a pleasant anchorage. In 1488, Bartholomew Dias, attempting to find a sea route to the East, became the first European to sail into the bay. For Dias and other early Portuguese navigators, the perennial spring near the shore was an ample source of fresh water. When Vasco da Gama visited the bay on his way to India in 1497 he called it Aguada de São Bras (‘watering place of St. Blaize’). He obtained cattle by bartering with the Hottentots, the first known commercial transaction between Europeans and the natives.
In 1500 Pedro d’Ataide ran for shelter into the bay and left an account of the disaster in an old shoe which was hung in a milkwood tree. João da Nova visited Mossel Bay in 1501 and found Pedr d’Ataide’s report in the shoe. The tree on which it hung still stands and has been declared a historical monument. For centuries it served as a postal clearing house. Seamen would leave letters in packets on the tree to be delivered by other seamen travelling to appropriate destinations. A letter-box has been erected nearby in the shape of a seaman’s boot, and letters posted there are franked, ‘Old Post Office Tree’.
During his stay, Da Nova built South Africa’s first church. Seeing the Hottentots with their herds of cattle near the bay, he named it Golfo dos Vaqueiros (‘bay of the herdsmen’). Without having been a great port, Mossel Bay has seen the comings and goings of many ships. In 1787, a storehouse was built to facilitate the export of wheat. Around this building the town grew and port facilities were expanded over the years. Wheat, wool, canned fruit, jams, ostrich feathers, ochre and bitter aloe juice are shipped out through Mossel Bay, but it is as a holiday resort that the town is best known. During Christmas, large numbers of the farming community of the Little Karoo and the Great Karoo travel to Mossel Bay’s camping sites, caravan parks, bungalows and hotels. The night air becomes heavy with the smell of barbecues. Open-air dances, sports, parties and public meetings are held. Swimming, surfing and boating are other pastimes.
In the sand dunes between the town’s reservoir and the golf clubhouse is an archaeological site on which Stone Age tools have been discovered. In 1864, a petrified forest, about 15 million years old, was unearthed on one of the beaches of the town. Some of the trees are estimated to have been more than 90 meters tall.
Oudtshoorn - The principal centre of the Little Karoo and capital of the southern Cape, Oudtshoorn is also the ostrich capital of the world. It is the only town at which ostrich feathers are regularly sold at public auction. The town is named after Baron Pieter van Rheede van Oudtshoorn, who died in 1773 on his way to the Cape to take up the office of governor. It was founded in 1847 around a church. On a site 300 meters above sea level, the town spreads itself along both banks of the Grobbelaars River. It is sheltered by the Swartberg Mountain range to the north and the Outeniquas to the south. The region is warm in summer, with little humidity, and has plenty of sunshine in winter.
Oudtshoorn’s C.P.Nel Museum owes its origin to a local businessman who collected historical objects. In 1953 he bequeathed the museum to the town. It is housed in what was formerly the Boys’ High School in a green domed building made of sandstone blocks. Its façade is regarded as Southern Africa’s finest example of stone masonry. The museum’s exhibits include firearms, a chain-drive car of 1898, an ox-wagon made in 1837, stuffed birds and geological items. The Ostrich Room has a series of exhibits depicting every aspect of the evolution and commercial use of ostriches.
A second museum is housed in Arbeidsgenot, the home of Senator Cornelius Jacob Langenhoven (1873-1932), champion of the Afrikaans language and author of the old national anthem of South Africa, Die Stem van Suid-Afrika. The museum Contains many of his personal belongings, including carvings of Herrie the elephant, one of his literary creations so beloved by readers that many sent him gifts of figures of the elephant. The sundial in the garden at Arbeidsgenot was designed by Langenhoven and installed in 1926.
Outeniqua Pass - This is one of the major road passes of South Africa. It carries the highway known as the Road of South Africa over the Outeniqua Mountains from George into the Little Karoo. Opened in 1951, the pass took ten years to build and is a majestic example of road engineering. It is 16 kilometers long and climbs up a gradient of 610 meters above the town of George. The traveller is presented with an exceptionally beautiful panorama, especially when the fruit trees in the valley are in blossom. One particular view site, about 6 kilometers up the seaward slope, has a plaque identifying the historic passes in the range.
Plettenberg Bay - The Portuguese named this bay Formosa (‘beautiful’). One of the beaches is known as Robberg (‘mountain of seals’). This popular holiday resort’s present name was given in 1778 by Governor Joachim van Plettenberg, who erected a beacon claiming the bay as the possession of the Dutch East India Company. The beacon was removed by the Historical Monuments Commission in 1964 and taken to the South African Cultural History Museum in Cape Town. It was replaced by a replica. The Dutch tried to develop the bay into a port for the shipment of timber, but failed and only the ruins of the storehouse they built in 1788 remain. The ruins have been proclaimed a national monument.
Norwegian settlers built a whaling base on what is known as Beacon Island from a beacon erected there. When the Norwegians left in 1920, holiday-makers started to move in, and nowadays Plettenberg Bay is devoted almost entirely to their enjoyment.
Prince Alfred’s Pass - The road from Knysna to Avontuur in the Langkloof finds a spectacular way over the Outeniqua Mountains by means of the pass named after Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria. He once hunted elephants here. The journey leads through dense forest past the forestry station of Deep Walls then through the Dal van Varings (‘dale of ferns’) and climbs steeply to a 1045 meter summit and then descends down into the fruit-producing valley of the Langkloof.
Robberg Nature Reserve - Fishermen consider Robberg to be only slightly inferior as a vantage point to the famous Rooikrans on the Cape Peninsula. Robberg (‘the mountain of seals’) is a peninsula of red sandstone projecting into the sea and terminating in Cape Seal. These 243 hectares of the peninsula are a nature reserve. Sea-birds are numerous and intertidal life is rich. Among caves and rock shelters are kitchen coves and ancient tools, revealing that prehistoric man found the area productive of seafood’s.
Riversdale - The air of Riversdale is saturated with the remarkable distinctive odour of the various species of aromatic Agathosma shrubs which make their home here. These nondescript- looking plants have a perfume that is antiseptic-like but not unpleasant. In the Jurisch Park are mesembryanthemums and flowering aloes and a dam which is the haunt of several species of wild water-birds. Riversdale was founded in 1838 and named after Harry Rivers, a local government official subsequently knighted for his work in the Cape.
Stilbaai - The Kafferkuils River then, re-named to the now the Goukou River reaches the Indian Ocean in a bay which can be so calm that it is known as Stilbaai (‘still bay’). Swimming, fishing, boating and collecting shells are the pastimes here. There is a small fishing harbour and a cluster of holiday cottages.
The shallow water off the shore was ideal for the making of stone fish traps, in which fish are trapped at low tide and often thousands of mullet are caught in a single trap. Many of these traps are still in use. Their walls are regularly repaired and the bottoms kept clear of debris.
It was on this coast that evidence was found of what is called the Still Bay Culture and the shore is a rich hunting ground for collectors of ancient relics of these people. Shells and drift seeds washed down from the tropics by the Mocambique Aguthas Current are often found in considerable numbers. Many museums have exhibits from this area. Shells are used locally to decorate graves. The Streams and rivers of this part of the coast are the homes of a vast population of edible eels, many weighing around 7,5 kilograms.
Storms River - The formidable gorge of the Storms River is spanned by the spectacular Paul Sauer Bridge, which was opened in 1964. It is 191 meters long and towers 130 meters above the river. This concrete bridge, designed by Ricardo Morandi of Rome, is built on the principle of a castle drawbridge. Two sections were hinged onto a platform on each side of the river and lowered to meet in the centre. The original winding pass, built by Thomas Bain in the 1870s is still open.
Tsitsikamma National Park - The name Tsitsikamma derives from a Hottentot word meaning ‘clear or sparkling water’. The Tsitsikamma Forest and Sea Coast national parks cover a 113 kilometer coastal strip of high rainfall with many rivers and streams. It is a wild and unspoiled stretch of rocky coast, with steep, forested cliffs. In the centre near the mouth of the Storms River is a camp with a restaurant, bungalows and caravan park. Swimming, fishing and walking are the chief pastimes here. In the pools along the coast is an abundance of marine life. The Otter Trail hiking path runs along the southern length of the park. There are huts for overnight stops and the coastal scenery is a delight, with wild flowers, birds and other wild life. The walk requires three days. A field museum at the mouth of the Storms River displays relics of the prehistoric beachcombers who lived on the coast.
In the forest there are several massive trees, the tallest is around 40 meters and some are reputedly 1000 years old. There are more than 30 species of indigenous trees, ferns and climbers, and rare birds such as the Knysna loerie and the Narina trogon have also been spotted in the forest.
Uniondale - This farming town had its beginning in 1865 when two townships, Lyon and Hopedale, were amalgamated and given the name of Uniondale. It was formerly a major ostrich farming and wagon-building centre.
Victoria Bay - Getting in and out of Victoria Bay took some doing for the road engineers. It is a small bay set in steep cliffs. The road descends by complex wriggles, and ends abruptly at a small beach with a cluster of holiday homes. Surfing waves here are often spectacular and Vic Bay is a truly magnificent spot.
Vleesbaai - The coastal resort of Vleesbaai (‘flesh bay’) is a popular holiday place for fishermen. The name comes from visits made to this bay by early Portuguese and Dutch sailors who traded with Hottentot tribes for meat and cattle. The beach is a haunt of collectors of shells. There are many heaps of shells left by prehistoric people, who obviously found the fishing as good in their distant times as it is today.
Wilderness - Honeymooners have long favoured Wilderness as a romantic seaside resort of international reputation. The trunk road passes over a unique semi-circular bridge across the Kaaimans River and provides stunning panoramic views. The forest covered hills of the region tumble down to a sandy beach more than 8 kilometers long. The beach has a dangerous backwash, but is fine for sunbathing and walking. There is just room between beach and hills for a line of hotels, holiday homes and the beginning of a chain of lakes and lagoons. Paths up the cliffs lead to many view points.
George Bennet, who bought the area in 1877, called it Wilderness, for that was exactly what it was. Roads have opened it up and it has become one of the most fashionable resorts in Southern Africa.
