Saturday, August 05, 2006

 

The Bottom Of The World


After the whales in Hermanus our plan was to drive through some more countryside before making a quick stop at Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point in Africa. We assumed that this would be quite a tourist attraction, and another opportunity to stick up a signpost showing distances to far flung places, but it seems like it's almost a secret that the South Africans are keeping to themselves at the moment. The backpacker 'Baz Bus' doesn't get within about 70km of the place and although there are quite a few guesthouses in the area we hadn't seen them advertised. Also, the two free backpacker guidebooks to the country don't (currently) list anywhere to stay in the town. In fact as far as we could tell the only accommodation was at a backpacker place we saw a poster for back in Cape Town. So of course we did the responsible thing and turned up in town without a booking, gambling that the place didn't turn out to be terrible..... We reasoned that it didn't matter much as we were only going to stay overnight, grab a few quick tourist photos in the morning, and then head off back up the road. How wrong we were!!

We soon discovered that the only reason the place isn't in the guidebooks is because it only opened this year, it will however be jumping straight into the 'Best Of' awards at the end of our trip. Back in Singapore we were lucky to find a great hostel based solely on someone else's blog recommendation, so hopefully we can now pass on the favour to others. So, if you're travelling along this bit of the coast go to Cape Agulhas, and when you go there make sure you stay at Cape Agulhas Backpackers, our photos are here. It didn't take our hosts Erin and Malan long to talk us into joining them for a Braai that evening. For the uninitiated (which included us) the Braai is the South African barbecue, and if you thought that the Aussies were the BBQ experts...... well, let's just say that you don't want to come to South Africa and start making statements like that! Down here it's got to be a REAL fire, and even charcoal is frowned upon by many, wood is the only way. In fact we met at least two people who seemed quite traumatised (disgusted even) by the knowledge that the Aussies and Brits barbecue on GAS, how could they?!?! We did try to explain that in the UK the timing of a BBQ is critical, and that using gas is often the only way to cook, eat and get back indoors before the rain starts, but it didn't help.

Anyhow, back to our first night in town. Having learned the rules we left the cooking to the experts (thanks Malan), and after one or two (OK, maybe more) drinks we were already agreeing to go along to a wine auction at the local bar/social club/nightclub. This was all great fun and somehow, after another few tasty beverages, we were already making plans to return to the club the following day for the big Saturday night out in town, not only that, but we had the opportunity to join a boat trip the next day. Whooosh.... there goes our plan for a quick overnight stay!

We were feeling a bit tired after our biggest night of drinking for quite some time so we almost didn't go on the boat trip, but fortunately we talked ourselves into it because it turned out to be one of the highlights of our entire trip. It certainly helped that the boat trip had been organised for one of the local winemakers, so of course he brought along some freshly bottled wine for us to sample. The plan was to go out into the bay and have a couple of drinks, a few snacks, and enjoy the fine weather. However, as it's whale season you can't sit around in a small boat for too long before you might attract the attention of one of the local marine residents. So whilst we enjoyed the fine local produce we were visited by a Southern Right whale of quite some size, I have no idea exactly how big it was but the important thing is that it was significantly larger than the boat in which we were all sitting. The sperm whale we saw in New Zealand was probably bigger but it was further away and we were on a much bigger boat, so this time we really did feel small! I'd carefully fitted the bigger zoom lens to the camera to try and get some decent photos but as it happened the whale was too close for that, which explains a couple of the unusually close shots, have a look here.

After all the whale excitement it was back to land for more local wine and yet another Braai, but we decided at this point that we'd better slip out for a couple of hours and actually do some sightseeing, so we headed off down to the lighthouse and the southernmost point marker. I've been discovering during this trip that Nikky is quite a lighthouse fan, which often involves heading off down gravel tracks for several kilometres in search of a vague point on the map. This lighthouse turned out to be very easy to find, but it also had a lighthouse MUSEUM!, so if you too are a lighthouse fan then this is the place to come. We discovered that there isn't (yet) a signpost at the southernmost point, but there are a pair of little signs which point out the Indian and Atlantic oceans. As we discovered at the Cape of Good Hope there seems to be no real agreement over where the two oceans meet, but Cape Agulhas definitely claims to be that point and they even have some thermal satellite images at the lighthouse to back up their argument!

Having done the tourist bit for the day we headed back to what was now starting to feel like 'home' to enjoy more local hospitality. We somehow found the stamina to continue into the Saturday night out, which was once again a good decision as we got to see a proper Afrikaans 'disco' which was quite an experience to say the least. This being a small town the local bar is actually something of a 'multi-function' venue, so if you can imagine a combination of wedding reception and school disco, where the music is a mixture of pop, European techno/dance and what can only be described as line-dancing tunes then you've just about visualised the place! This might all sound a bit off putting but we really did have a good time, and that was before we got to study the local dance moves. Having a partner is essential, and you need to pull off what I guess could be described as 'modern ballroom', but at a tremendous pace (regardless of which of the aforementioned musical genres is playing), it's quite amazing to watch and I failed pretty badly when I attempted it!

This may help to explain why Sunday didn't really start until lunchtime, but we did still fit in a visit to the longest white sand beach in the southern hemisphere and more whale watching at De Hoop (see previous note). Finally on the Monday morning after a tour round a few more local attractions we decided we'd better get back on the road and continue our journey, we've given ourselves about 12 days to get to Durban and so far it's taken us 5 days to do about an eighth of the distance!!!

# posted by Mark @ Saturday, August 05, 2006
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