Tourist for a Day: Overberg and Surrounds
The gorgeous weather of late, couple with the fact that the school holidays are on, have made the past week, the ideal time to set about exploring and enjoying the areas that are within a days drive of home.
The Whale Festival was on in Hermanus, which is about 90 mins drive from Cape Town, over the past weekend, and so it was with Whales in mind that our family set out on a day trip in that general direction.
We decided to take the coastal route from Gordons Bay, but had to stop and capture the fantastic view, and hope that the strong wind was not going to blow us off the road! Still, for this view, it was totally worth chancing it right?
Looking back toward Cape Town, you can just make out the distant figure of the back of Table Mountain in the distance, across False Bay.
The coastal route is really quite spectacular, and each bend brings with it new sights, and more incredible mountains, and frothy seascapes that are an absolute pleasure to behold.
Another advantage of this route are the fact that it is NOT a toll road, there are a few stopping off points from which you can safely take in the view on foot (beware the wind), and there is also relatively little traffic, although of course our trip was undertaken midweek, and one imagines that on a Friday afternoon, it may be another story entirely.
The first sign of houses after Gordons Bay, is at Rooi Els, followed by the beautiful, picturesque Pringle Bay. Two seaside havens which are mostly holiday homes and weekend getaways for the well-heeled.
After Pringle Bay is a stretch of road leading to Bettys’ Bay, where the scenery changes yet again…
Betty’s Bay is the next holiday hideaway, before you reach a larger settlement at Kleinmond (including the absolutely stunning Arabella Golf Resort). Just after Kleinmond the R44 meets the R43 which is the main route to Hermanus from Cape Town.
This is what it looks like when you look inland (to the left) as opposed to out to sea.
You can see the route on this map below, marked out in red (start at Gordons Bay and head south). The blue bubbles on the map, are the locations where I shot the photographs for this piece.
We finally reached Hermanus, only to see that the wind was blowing a gale, and the Whale Crier was silent indicating that no Whales had been sighted. The Wiki link will tell you about the Whale Crier, who is believed to be the only one of his kind in the world. He is employed by the town, to blow on a horn made of kelp, and different sounds indicate to the townsfolk where the whales have been sighted.
But sadly, we did not get to see any Whales on this occasion. Perhaps they were tired after putting on such a great show during the Whale festival. No matter, we’ll definitely get some whale shots onto NessWorld in due course.
The wind was really quite something, so we decided to visit the child friendly haven known as the Wimpy instead, where we were able to build up our caffeine stores by having a mega-coffee (the husband opted for their bottomless Coca-cola option), and the kids were more than happy with the familiar food, and of course the obligatory balloons on offer afterward.
We pressed on eastwards, toward the picturesque and charming town of Stanford, and will definitely be returning there for a weekend getaway soon, the town deserves a whole article to itself, which is why it’s only getting a mention now.
We took the R326 north-east toward Riviersonderend. What an unexpected pleasure THAT route turned out to be!
Look here! (Remember it’s Spring in the Southern Hemisphere right now – at last!)
Those are Waterbuck I believe, and we also spotted some rather camera shy Wildebeest, Zebra and Springboks. We’ll definitely explore this area some more when we go back to Stanford.
Reaching the top of a small mountain pass, we were once again faced with a change of scenery, and we began our descent into a valley filled to the brim with rolling green and yellow fields, and where purple mountains stood in the distance. Reaching our turning point we were about to turn to head homewards, when we met some woolly friends…
The kids loved the fact that we were soon enveloped by sheep!
Spring time is shearing time, and this lot were off to get shorn, like their rather skinny looking counterparts that we past in the coming fields as we turned for home into the fading afternoon light.
Thank you for traveling with us!
Our next installment of Tourist for a Day will be coming soon, but even sooner than that, get ready for the most delicious Sesame Noodle dish with chicken and vegetables! It’s fore-head-smackingly – YUMMY!
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Stunning photos Ness – can’t wait for the next lot. Don’t know what I was expecting of the countryside in SA but not this. LOL
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HI Vicki
Thanks for visiting!
This part of the countryside, particularly near the coast, is quite jaw-dropping. Once you venture further in land, it becomes increasingly more arid, and more ‘Africanesque’, and probably a bit more like you were expecting.
Still though, I like this part of the surrounding area very much. Just wish I had the opportunity to go there more often!
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