Beautiful, not-so-peaceful, Stilbaai

Stilbaai

Stilbaai, also known as Still Bay, is well known amongst Capetonians as a peace­ful, sea­side get­away on the Garden Route, per­fect for week­ends. It has, to a large degree, man­aged to main­tain an unspoiled and nat­ural envir­on­ment that is par­tic­u­larly beau­ti­ful dur­ing spring, with a pretty beach vil­lage atmo­sphere on the east­ern side of the vil­lage, and beau­ti­ful beaches.

But come here dur­ing the fest­ive sea­son, and you begin to won­der whether the res­id­ents may not have been a little hasty in call­ing their bay 'still'. It has become so pop­u­lar and so busy at this time of year that 'hec­tic' is prob­ably a more apt descrip­tion, and we were there before the major onslaught that hap­pens just before Christmas ...

One approaches Stilbaai along a beau­ti­ful strip of road that runs par­al­lel to the Goukou River, a lovely set­ting that, given the right time of day, is simply gor­geous. It's one of the major attrac­tions of the sea­side vil­lage that the Goukou River is nav­ig­able for around 17 kilo­metres inland from the beach and town. As one nears the town, pretty homes are evid­ent on both sides of the bank, whilst a bridge spans the dis­tance between the two.

Stilbaai

The other major attrac­tion is of course the beach, which stretches for miles, offers safe swim­ming and evid­ence of fish traps used by an ancient people who sur­vived on an abund­ance of fish that date back to the Stone Age. Lappiesbaai Beach, Stilbaai's main beach, has attained blue flag status for the fourth year run­ning, the only beach on the stretch between Jeffreys Bay and Hermanus to have done so. And the area is filled with nature trails, bird watch­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, the chance to spot whales in sea­son, and one of the best surf spots around. It's a beau­ti­ful picture.

Still Bay is divided by the Goukou River into east and west. The west side is mainly res­id­en­tial. It's where you'll find more per­man­ent res­id­ences, a series of shops, the police, the muni­cip­al­ity, the har­bour and the tour­ism bur­eau. The east­ern side is given over to hol­i­day makers, pre­dom­in­antly, with two cara­van parks, the beach, beach sideee enter­tain­ment, and a series of very prettbeach sidedee 'cot­tages', roughly a block from the sea­side. Here life revolves around the beach.

Stilbaai

But it becomes a pity when such a beau­ti­ful spot is inund­ated, and cer­tainly, it must place an incred­ible pres­sure on the envir­on­ment, par­tic­u­larly as this last fest­ive sea­son fell dur­ing a severe drought to the Garden Route and sur­rounds. Whilst some bro­chures call this time of year in Stilbaai 'fest­ive', I for one would rather give it a wide berth.

But there are attrac­tions at Stilbaai, other than the beach, should you be there over a busy week­end. On the east­ern bor­der of town sits the Preekstoel – what appears to be a roughly hewn rock in the shape of a minister's pul­pit – an inter­est­ingly shaped rock that is just one of a num­ber of fas­cin­at­ing rock form­a­tions along this strip of the coast.

Closer to the beach there are cir­cu­lar stone struc­tures that the Khoi-San people cre­ated hun­dreds of years ago to catch fish at low tide, some of which are still used today.

Stilbaai

Just bey­ond the Preekstoel is the Geelkrans Nature Reserve, named after the yel­low sand cliffs that rise above the high water mark, and home to 165 hec­tares of south coast fyn­bos and coastal rhen­osterveld. Even more beau­ti­ful and worth a visit is the Palingkloof nature area, some­thing of a nature garden, through which the Paling stream runs.

Paling is the Afrikaans word for eel and indeed there are eels here that can be fed by hand, they're so tame. They're a really dif­fer­ent look­ing type of eel, in the sense that they have blue eyes, and they travel all the way to Mozambique to lay their eggs. Once they've hatched, the young eels then make their way to Stilbaai where they spend most of their lives, before return­ing to Mozambique to lay eggs, and so the cycle continues.

Rumour has it that these eels have been liv­ing here for the past 125 years.

Stilbaai

You also don't have to stay in Stilbaai to enjoy the beauty of the area. 'Eden Country', also known as the T4 route, links the towns of Albertinia, Stilbaai, Riversdale, Heidelberg and Witsand. Just out­side Stilbaai, on this route, are quite a few altern­at­ive places to stay, most of them on farms that escape the havoc of town, yet place you eas­ily within reach of the beach and attrac­tions. And make sure that you have time to include Wild Olive Guest Farm's break­fasts or lunches. The farm not only makes deli­cious home-grown food, but pro­duces enough organic pro­duce to sup­ply the loc­als with food too.

As we wound our way away from town we passed men up to their thighs in the estu­ary, hop­ing to catch a cob or two when the tide is in. Idyllic, yes. Just not dur­ing the silly season.

Still Bay Links:
Still Bay Attractions
Things to Do in Still Bay
Still Bay Accommodation
Garden Route Accommodation