Surfer's Paradise
To get to Elands Bay, you have to venture off the main tarmac strip heading north and head west towards the icy Atlantic coast. Chances are you’re a surfer or beach bum, because this laid-back little dorp boasts a superb break on just about any given fun day.
Maybe it is the surf ethic or just the town’s off-the-beaten-track location, but so far ‘Elands’ has managed to resist getting caught up in the rat race. The rambling streets and generally low-brow houses spread haphazardly along a protected bay, and it remains a paradise for surfers, seafood connoisseurs, birdwatchers and eco-tourists alike.
The imposing mountain brooding above Elands Bay offer excellent hiking and trail running, as well as a few rock climbing routes. The marshes along the valley, meanwhile, will delight birders, hikers and fynbos aficionados.
A Perfect Point Break
The lee of Baboon Point also offers enough protection for the launching of fishing bakkies. These rowing boats are lowered on derricks from the towns crayfish factory and ply the waters of the bay delving for rich veins of orange gold. In addition, the peninsula sets up a perfect point break with an endless right that, on a good day, will impress even the Jeffreys Bay faithful.
The entry is an ungainly hobble over sharp mussel beds, your feet squelching on anemones and the water is icy. But surfers get dreamy eyed over the consistency of the ride, the clean perfection of this legendary wave. The beach itself sweeps northward from the surf spot, past giant dunes towards Lamberts Bay, and is wide, beautiful and windy, so more a place for long contemplative walks than being a sun-kissed poser.
Verlorenvlei
If a farmer blocks the mouth of an estuary with a concrete causeway, can you call it a lake? This is the unfortunate fate of Verlorenvlei, once a little-known wetland on the West Coast until Cape Town's surfing fraternity discovered the barrelling point break in Elands Bay. The vlei was discovered by the Dutch colonists in the time of Governor Simon van der Stel, and by the mid-1700s a wheat-farming community had been established there.
But then it was forgotten; the brackish water used to irrigate the land made it infertile, and the place slowly faded into obscurity. In the 1960s the area still had a vestige of agriculture, but even then it was referred to as a lost world. This natural wetland covers 1 500 ha and is a Ramsar site, being of international importance for waterfowl.
Did You Know: The Ramsar (The Convention on Wetlands) protected Verlorenvlei wetlands are home to the pseudobarbus ray-finned fish, the Burchell’s red-fin, a species found nowhere else on earth but this vlei.
By Jacques Marais
The coast of South Africa offers amazing experiences out in the cool waters of the West Coast and the warmer waves of the eastern coast....
Elands Bay is one of those spots Cape Town surfers and sandveld lovers talk about in hushed tones. It’s a place many want to keep a secret...