Walker Bay
Walker Bay is a bite out of the South African coast southeast of Cape Town and halfway to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa. It is home to three vastly different towns and the Walker Bay Nature Reserve, an unbroken 20 km stretch of protected off-white dunes tumbling down to gorgeous sand beach and the waters that break against it. The bay is known best for its “Big 2”-great white sharks and southern right whales.
This part of the Western Cape is called the Overberg, “over the mountain,” since one travels over a hefty set of mountains on the way here from Cape Town. By car on the N2 it takes just under two hours, but by horseback or wagon in the early days crossing Sir Lowry’s Pass must have been quite an ordeal. The area is primarily agricultural with fruits and veggies and the recent addition of several local vineyards cashing in on South Africa’s niche in the world’s wine biz. There are craggy mountains that must have been airlifted from Scotland and plunked down here next to the juncture of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
Afrikaans is the most common language and the one that we are invariably greeted in, by black or white. Once we respond in English, they immediately switch and we converse just fine, with their thinly disguised smiles silently laughing at our odd accent and pronunciation of easy words, like “building” which is spoken more like “bull-ding.” And our destruction of “Gansbaai”, which should be closer to “Hans-bye,” only with a dry cracker stuck in the back of your throat. The small local weekly newspapers are in Afrikaans. For Sale signs also state “Te Koop.” Thankfully “beer” is beer and “pub” is pub.
The three sister towns are situated in an equilateral triangle around the Bay with coastal Hermanus at 12:00 o’clock, Stanford inland a bit at 3:00, and port town Gansbaai at 6:00. Hermanus is the trendy, upscale, contemporary sister. This is where one goes to shop for books, saunter through the galleries, stop for a bite at the Savannah Café under the umbrellas. She prides herself, mistakenly, on being the “Whale Watching Capital of the World.” There is an official Whale Crier who blows a horn whenever one is sighted. Very Santa Barbara.
Stanford is laid out like a proper English town complete with village green and it’s own main drag, Queen Victoria Street. She has managed to retain her 19th century architecture, a style called Cape Dutch, which is heavy on thick white plastered walls and thatched roofs. The town has recently seen a renaissance from its agricultural roots and is becoming a refuge for artists and those seeking escape from the stresses of urban life. It is hip in an Asheville kinda way, only on a smaller scale.
Gansbaai (Goose Bay) is the working class girl. No adornments here. No cutesy touches. No niceties. Just the smell of fish wafting up from the harbor when the wind is right. Hardware stores are called “Hardware.” There are two supermarkets, the OK and the Spar, which take turns being closed. The 7-11 is not open that late and doesn’t carry Cape Town newspapers.
Walker Bay is a bite out of the South African coast southeast of Cape Town and halfway to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa. It is home to three vastly different towns and the Walker Bay Nature Reserve, an unbroken 20 km stretch of protected off-white dunes tumbling down to gorgeous sand beach and the waters that break against it. The bay is known best for its “Big 2”-great white sharks and southern right whales.
This part of the Western Cape is called the Overberg, “over the mountain,” since one travels over a hefty set of mountains on the way here from Cape Town. By car on the N2 it takes just under two hours, but by horseback or wagon in the early days crossing Sir Lowry’s Pass must have been quite an ordeal. The area is primarily agricultural with fruits and veggies and the recent addition of several local vineyards cashing in on South Africa’s niche in the world’s wine biz. There are craggy mountains that must have been airlifted from Scotland and plunked down here next to the juncture of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
Afrikaans is the most common language and the one that we are invariably greeted in, by black or white. Once we respond in English, they immediately switch and we converse just fine, with their thinly disguised smiles silently laughing at our odd accent and pronunciation of easy words, like “building” which is spoken more like “bull-ding.” And our destruction of “Gansbaai”, which should be closer to “Hans-bye,” only with a dry cracker stuck in the back of your throat. The small local weekly newspapers are in Afrikaans. For Sale signs also state “Te Koop.” Thankfully “beer” is beer and “pub” is pub.
The three sister towns are situated in an equilateral triangle around the Bay with coastal Hermanus at 12:00 o’clock, Stanford inland a bit at 3:00, and port town Gansbaai at 6:00. Hermanus is the trendy, upscale, contemporary sister. This is where one goes to shop for books, saunter through the galleries, stop for a bite at the Savannah Café under the umbrellas. She prides herself, mistakenly, on being the “Whale Watching Capital of the World.” There is an official Whale Crier who blows a horn whenever one is sighted. Very Santa Barbara.
Stanford is laid out like a proper English town complete with village green and it’s own main drag, Queen Victoria Street. She has managed to retain her 19th century architecture, a style called Cape Dutch, which is heavy on thick white plastered walls and thatched roofs. The town has recently seen a renaissance from its agricultural roots and is becoming a refuge for artists and those seeking escape from the stresses of urban life. It is hip in an Asheville kinda way, only on a smaller scale.
Gansbaai (Goose Bay) is the working class girl. No adornments here. No cutesy touches. No niceties. Just the smell of fish wafting up from the harbor when the wind is right. Hardware stores are called “Hardware.” There are two supermarkets, the OK and the Spar, which take turns being closed. The 7-11 is not open that late and doesn’t carry Cape Town newspapers.After the whole bay became a protected biosphere zone, the local fishermen adapted to the restricted catch limits and hit on the idea of the shark cage diving thing and this has changed the town into an international destination. In the past week alone, we have hosted the King of Jordan and one of those young English princes and their respective entourages to do the diving.
All three of these towns, like most of South Africa, are really hubs with spoke-towns connected, where the black population lives. Apartheid laws dictated such an arrangement, but the economics of today, fourteen years after Mandela’s successes, are still so firmly entrenched that, in my opinion, only generations of education and intercultural growth will change it. These are not the sprawling townships like Soweto near JoBurg and Khayaletsha near the Cape Town Airport, but they are an overcrowded cluster of tin shacks that house those who do the work nobody else wants, or worse, do the drugs and alcohol of resignation, like so many urban ‘hoods around the world.
All three of these towns, like most of South Africa, are really hubs with spoke-towns connected, where the black population lives. Apartheid laws dictated such an arrangement, but the economics of today, fourteen years after Mandela’s successes, are still so firmly entrenched that, in my opinion, only generations of education and intercultural growth will change it. These are not the sprawling townships like Soweto near JoBurg and Khayaletsha near the Cape Town Airport, but they are an overcrowded cluster of tin shacks that house those who do the work nobody else wants, or worse, do the drugs and alcohol of resignation, like so many urban ‘hoods around the world.
Walking along the streets of Walker Bay’s three towns you will see a rainbow of faces, mixing, going about their day, picking up the veggies and milk, gassing up the car, laughing over a joke. The banker is a sharp young black guy. The clerk at the fast food chicken joint is a young white girl. The dowdy woman running the art gallery is white, but the art on her wall has been created by black artists. Here in Walker Bay, people coexist. Person to person, there is friendliness, a mutual respect. I’ll get into politics some other time.
Our village, though it’s not even that, is called De Kelders, which means "the caves." We actually connect to Gansbaai through another group of coast-clinging homes known as Perlemonbaai, or abalone bay. We are the Glendale to Gansbaai’s Phoenix. No recognizable borderline, but a distinction, to be sure. De Kelders is some 1000 residential lots that span the rocky coast for about 4 km and includes the next four or five streets going up the hills toward the R43 highway and the mountains just a kilometer beyond.
Our village, though it’s not even that, is called De Kelders, which means "the caves." We actually connect to Gansbaai through another group of coast-clinging homes known as Perlemonbaai, or abalone bay. We are the Glendale to Gansbaai’s Phoenix. No recognizable borderline, but a distinction, to be sure. De Kelders is some 1000 residential lots that span the rocky coast for about 4 km and includes the next four or five streets going up the hills toward the R43 highway and the mountains just a kilometer beyond.
Once a group of simple pensioners’ cottages, one finds all manner of house construction here now. There are contemporary glass and steel places nestled between Tuscan villas and wee log cabins. There is one pub, Buitensteen’s, which seems to never lack for customers, and one tiny market, that DOES sell the Cape Times. The number of Bed and Breakfast’s has grown from our friend Gerhard’s first one 12 years ago, to about twenty, at last count. It is a weekend town that fills up on Friday night and empties before Monday morning. There are some families here, but the majority of our full-time neighbors are our elders, or at least act that way. Suffice it to say that Mimi and I are surely the only runners out in short shorts and iPods treading the hills of De Kelders.
On the hill the other side of the highway, perched into the fynbos is Grootbos, a five-star resort heavily into conservation and fine foods. Fynbos is the indigenous plant that grows only here in the Western Cape and forms the multi-shaded green carpet that overlays the whole region. It is a strange, hardy bush that comes in hundreds of varieties and can handle the sandy soil, the constant winds, and frequent fires.
The weather here confounds and delights us. We are accustomed to sixteen years of the forecast: “sunny and hot,” with little variation. On this southern coast of Africa the day can open cloudy, foggy, muggy and dark, turn to sunny and fine, and end in a cold rain. As they say here, “all four seasons in a day.” But, we love the changing skies.
On the hill the other side of the highway, perched into the fynbos is Grootbos, a five-star resort heavily into conservation and fine foods. Fynbos is the indigenous plant that grows only here in the Western Cape and forms the multi-shaded green carpet that overlays the whole region. It is a strange, hardy bush that comes in hundreds of varieties and can handle the sandy soil, the constant winds, and frequent fires.The weather here confounds and delights us. We are accustomed to sixteen years of the forecast: “sunny and hot,” with little variation. On this southern coast of Africa the day can open cloudy, foggy, muggy and dark, turn to sunny and fine, and end in a cold rain. As they say here, “all four seasons in a day.” But, we love the changing skies.
And we have been totally surprised by the changes the sea goes through. After a month gazing out the picture windows of this rental house at the water below, we have seen no two days with the same conditions. The color changes from indigo blue to, well, sea green, to smoky gray and all hues in between. The waves right now as I squint out the window are crushingly huge, the largest we’ve seen, and their crashing has left a wide skirt of white foam all along the coast. Yet, sometimes the Bay looks and acts more like a big lake. Still, silent. Glassy. Great for water skiing, except for those sharks, of course. Every day and every sunset are great Imax shows for us, right there within touching distance. Will we grow tired of these natural multimedia presentations? Doubt it.
No comments:
Post a Comment