No Fixed Abode: Where two oceans meet

Mon 30 May 2016 - Cape Agulhas

Last night was luxury. Our first South African house that was warm both in the evening and the morning.

Thinking it was only a short hop to Cape Agulhas, we left late and were surprised when Harriet, the voice of our GPS, announced that our arrival time would be 1330. We now made a hasty journey along the remaining garden route and fortunately, with very little traffic on the roads, we reached a stopping point for lunch with only 53 km left to our destination. We drove through Bredasdorp, a medium sized town with a large industrial area where we were staying tonight with Airbnb hosts, to continue to the coast and oceans.

Nearing the ocean we drove through the town of St Agulhas and it was not how we had anticipated it. There was a host of modern and traditional holiday homes dotted along the coastal road which led us to Cape Agulhas lighthouse and finally, the car park which is a 150 m walk to the most southerly point in Africa and where two oceans, Indian and Atlantic meet. We had imagined the end of Africa to have sheer cliff faces with the two oceans crashing their waves on rock boulders, with us watching perched precariously on high. None of this was true. Instead the land quietly sloped into the sea with a dash of rock formations where the ocean steadily rolled in. The anticipated turbulent whirlpool of currents from the oceans, as described in various books, did not exist either.

The national park had provided a very good boardwalk to the point where it is recognised as the end of Africa and the two oceans meet and we obviously, as tourists, posed for the memory album. We also considered the last time we had seen the Atlantic, many months ago we discovered.

With the sun getting low, we took a quick spin along ocean view drive, stopping briefly at the Harbour where not much was going on this late in the day and then made our way back to Bredasdorp to meet our Airbnb hosts Tanya, Zule and their dog Iggy. We were interested in discussing their six month travels through South America which they had recently completed and we discussed the merits of Lonely Planet books and using blogs from other travellers.

Naturally, we spent some time with them discussing the woes of South Africa but these two women are committed to make a difference in the lives of South Africans. Both entrepreneurs, they have started their own company with an initiative called ‘Sunglasses at School’, in which they are endeavouring to get every school child to wear sunglasses with the aim to minimise eye related diseases caused by UV exposure. Tanya is a qualified optometrist and Zule recently gave up her career as a professional photographer to pursue this plan they both have. It was refreshing to meet two motivated and young women who wanted to see SA change and they were trying to make a valid and worthwhile contribution towards that.