No Fixed Abode: Hunting for Whales

Tue 31 May 2016 - Gansbaai and Hermanus

There was an amazing sunrise from the lounge window this morning.

With a short day ahead of us we stayed talking to Zule and Tanya for a long while over a breakfast of mieliepap, a South African corn porridge, similar to tapioca, that Zule had kindly made for us. Having solved the country’s economic and prejudice problems we bade our farewells and left for Walker Bay.

Walker bay is a large bay mid way between Cape Agulhas and the Cape of Good Hope and nestled between the headland towns of Gansbaai and Hermanus. It is famous, along with a lot of this coast, as an over wintering ground for southern right whales and we went straight to a viewing point at Gansbaai to see what we could see. After scanning the sea with our binoculars we soon found a distant whale and watched it swim around for a while then dive for a snack. Chuffed with ourselves we drove along the coast road until it ended up at a Nature Reserve. The coastline here was remote and wild, just how we like it, and backed with the most enormous dunes we’ve ever seen - they must have been over 100m high.

Feeling hungry we resisted the temptation to explore the empty beach and turned our attention to finding somewhere to eat. A short trip into Gansbaai town turned up nothing so we made our way to Hermanus, a larger, more touristy town. As we entered the outskirts we noticed a sign to Grotto Beach and recalled Zule mentioned it as worthy of a visit so we turned off and stumbled across Dutchies, a small beachside restaurant with a Dutch flag fluttering in the light breeze. Finding a table in the sunshine we ordered some draught beer from a local brewery called Birkenhead and chose our food: fish and chips for Yvonne, and Broodjekroket (a weird stewed meat breadcrumb sausage) for Glenn.

Enjoying the sun and people watching we finished our lunch and went for a walk on the beach. More soft fine sand beneath our feet made it a pleasant affair until Glenn thought of going for a paddle. Now on the eastern side of Cape Agulhas the warm, south flowing current of the Indian Ocean had been replaced by a freezing, north flowing Atlantic current from Antarctica. It was colder than the sea around Britain!

Passing through the large, prestigious beachside holiday homes we arrived at Hermanus town centre and winged our way to Gearings Point, the main whale viewing headland for which Hermanus is famous. Glenn recalled seeing a few Rock Hyrax (like a huge, fat ferret) scampering around the rocks on his last visit some 10 years ago. Now the place is infested and because idiotic people, including one loud mouthed local, feed them they, like the baboons, now seek out humans expecting food and have become a nuisance.

Undeterred we walked to the main viewing point in the late afternoon sun and scanned the sea. Once more we were fortunate to spot a whale spout, although it was very far away. We hung around a while longer but not wanting to be trying to find our farm cottage in darkness decided to make our move.

Following the instructions from the owners we drove out of Hermanus, found our turning then drove the 9km up a gently winding mountain road past several wineries, making a note to return tomorrow, until we found High Season Farm. Our cottage was simply delightful. Well made and well equipped, with a log burner and lovely views - what a shame we were only there for one night.