Overberg
Overberg and South Coast
The Southernmost Tip of the African continent is at Cape Agulhas and is determined by the International Hydrographic Organization, this is also the location where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. Whales arrive on the overberg coast in June and usually stay until November. The area boasts some of the world's best land-based whale watching spots. Keep a look out for the world's only whale crier who will let you know where the whales can be spotted. Fynbos, the smallest of the six floristic kingdoms of the world, can be found throughout the Overberg and is at its most spectacular during late winter and spring. The Moravian mission towns of Genadendal & Elim, with their quaint original architecture, shelter industry appropriate to earlier times.
The Overberg's wine estates form a triangle between Grabouw, Villersdorp and passing through Bot River to the southernmost vineyards in the Hemel-en Aarde Valley near Hermanus. Many of these cellars are open to visitors for tastings. Wines range from crisp dry whites to full-bodied reds. Take a hike, saddle a horse, hit the trails through the richest Fynbos veld in the world! There's plenty to stir your sense of adventure: from gentle walks in the mountains to energetic sandboarding and river rafting to adrenaline-pumping hang gliding, scuba and shark cage diving, kloofing, absailing and more.
Cape Agulhas
Alongside the east flank of Danger Point outcrop, the rocky and shallow coastline with heavy swells and strong currents makes this one of South Africa's most perfidious stretches of coast - one that has claimed over 250 wrecks and around 2500 lives. Its rocky terrain also accounts for the lack of a coastal road from Gansbaai and Danger Point to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa.
The plain around the southern tip has been declared the Agulhas National Park to conserve its estimated 2000 species of indigenous plant and marine and intertidal life as well as a cultural heritage, which includes shipwrecks, archeological sites - stone hearths, pottery and shell middens have been discovered. There are very little facilities, apart from a basic tea shop inside the terrific Agulhas Lighthouse (Tues-Sat 9:30am-4:45pm, Sun 10am-3:30pm) commissioned in 1849. Apart from the ecstasy of climbing the precipitous winding stairway to the top, from which you get vertiginous views, there are also some interesting exhibits about lighthouses around South Africa and the world. Three-hour tours taking in the cost, Fynbos as well as history and archeology of the area are operated by well informed Riaan Pienaar of Coastal Safaris (028 435 7148 or 082 331 6819).
Hermanus
The town, nestled between the mountains and the blue waters of Walker Bay, is one of the Western Cape's premier holiday spots and a magnet for whale-watchers. During the autumn and winter months these giant marine mammals, most of them southern rights, come inshore. One can't get too close - local conservationists make sure of that - but there are good views (through the telescope provided, but bring binoculars as well) from the high cliffs above the bay. An official 'whale crier', complete with uniform and horn, announces the arrival of these leviathans.
For the rest, Hermanus offers fine beaches, safe batching and surfing, splendid opportunities (along the rocky coast to either side and the placid Kleinriviersvlei lagoon) for yachtsman, for fisherman and for divers in search of juicy crayfish (rock lobster). Recommended is the walk along the cliff tops, and the Rocky Mountain Way, a scenic drive that slices through the hills. The local 18-hole golf course welcomes visitors, as does the nearby Hamilton Russell Estate, which boasts Africa's southernmost vineyards (open Monday-Friday and Saturday morning for tastings and sales). Among the town's more ambitious tourist schemes is its Old Harbor, preserved in toto as a museum and a national monument to the fisher folk of yesteryear. The work-worn little boats on view date from the 1850's to the 1960's; scenes of the early days, when the place drew all its prosperity from the fruits of the sea, can be seen in the small stone museum building. Commercial fisherman, sporting anglers and other owners of leisure craft now use the splendid new marine complex. Some of the boats can be hired for deep-sea game fishing expeditions.
Swellendam
Swellendam, 97 km east of Caledon, is an attractive historic town at the foot of the Langeberg. It has one of the best country museums in South Africa, which makes it a congenial halfway stop along the N2 between Cape Town and the Garden Route. And because of its ample supply of good accommodation and its position - poised between the significant regional highlights of the coastal De Hoop Nature Reserve to the south and the mountains around Montagu to the north - it's a suitable base for spending a few days exploring this part of the Overberg.
South Africa's third-oldest white settlement, Swellendam was established in 1745 by Baron Gustav van Imhoff, a visiting Dutch East India Company bigwig, who was deeply concerned about the 'moral degeneration' of burghers who where trekking further and further from Cape Town and out of Company control. Of no less concern to the Baron was the loss of revenue from these 'vagabonds', who were neglecting to pay the Company for the right to hold land and were fiddling their annual tax returns. Following a brief hiccup in 1795, when burghers declared a 'free republic' (quickly extinguished when Britain occupied the Cape), the town grew into a prosperous rural center known for its wagon-making, and for being the last civilized port of call for trekboers heading out into the interior.
The income generated from this helped build Swellendam's gracious homes, many of which went up in smoke in the fire of 11865, which razed much of the town center. In 1950, transport planners widened the main road by ripping out many of the oaks that had survived the blaze. Nevertheless, Swellendam survived with enough charm to lure you off the national road. The only building in the center to survive the town's ravages is the Cape Dutch-style Oefeningshuis, 36 Voortrek St, which now houses the tourist information bureau. Built in 1838, it was first used as a place for religious activity, and then as a school for freed slaves, and surreal-looking clocks with frozen hands carved into either gable end, below which there's a real clock above the entrance. Diagonally opposite and slightly east at no. 11, the Dutch Reformed Church, dating from 1910, incorporates Gothic windows, a Baroque spire, Renaissance portico elements and Cape Dutch gables into a wedding cake of a building that, against the odds, agreeably holds its own.
On the east side of town, a short way from the center is the excellent Drostdy Museum, 18 Swellegrebel St (Mon-Fri 9am-4:45pm, Sat & Sun 10am-3:45pm). One of the finest country museums in South Africa, it's actually a collection of historic buildings arranged around large grounds and a lovely nineteenth-century Cape garden. The centerpiece is the Drostdy itself, built in 1747 as the seat of the landdrost, a magistrate-cum-commissioner sent out by the Dutch East India Company to control the outer reaches of its territory. The building conforms to the beautiful lime washed, thatched and shuttered Cape Dutch style of the eighteenth century, but the furnishings are of nineteenth-century vintage. From the rear garden of the Drostdy you can stroll along the path and across Drostdy St to Mayville, a middle-class Victorian homestead from the mid-nineteenth century with an old rose garden. Also part of the complex are the Old Goal, the jailer's cottage, and an interesting display of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century farm implements and tools. Look out, too, for the old dung circular threshing floor in a low-walled enclosure...definitely worth a visit!
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