23/05/2013
Having lived in South Africa for 20 odd years and during subsequent trips back I have covered a fair amount of the beautiful country, from Sodwana Bay on the north east coast to Graaf Reinet in the interior, though I had never been further up the west coast than Cape Town. So when my mom asked what I wanted to do when I visited this time I jumped at the opportunity to let her organise a road trip up this spectacular piece of the country.
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| One of the many passes through the Cederberg. |
It being May there would be no real chance of windsurfing and thus I am yet to surf any of the spots around the cape, so we started the trip by heading slightly inland, to the Cederberg and Citrusdal. We meet up with family at
the Baths which are natural hotsprings once used by bushmen to aid healing and spirituality. After a few days of rejuvenating in the warm waters it was time to bid farewell to some family members and head to the coast with my parents and my sister.
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| Old colonial building at the Baths |
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| Sister enjoying the view from one of the many hikes. |
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| Moonrise over the Cederberg |
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| Relaxing in one of the smaller baths. |
From Citrusdal we spent our first night in the little port of Lamberts Bay. The weather was cold and moody, which for the rest of the family brought comments of, "I don't see the attraction of this place." For me as, I strolled along the shoreline in the heavy evening air, I saw the attraction, the wild, ruggedness of this coastline with sunsets over the ocean makes it a photographer's dream.
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| An overcast sunset at Lamberts Bay |
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| Lamberts Bay |
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| Someday we'll all go back to the oceans. |
We took the coastal road from Lamberts Bay to a little settlement called Paternoster which is well know for its lobster and white fishing houses. Despite the cold weather, this time everyone was in agreement that they could see why this is often claimed to be one of the most beautiful places on the west coast.
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| White houses at Paternoster |
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| An evening fish. |
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| Purple haze. |
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| Some things are made to share. |
The route back to Cape Town took us via Langebaan, a well known windsurfing spot and often used testing ground for some of the industry manufacturers. We stopped there for lunch and although there wasn't a windsurfer in sight I caught myself adding a point to my bucket list: road trip Southern Africa with windsurfers on the roof of a camper-van.
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| Langebaan Lagoon |
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