Favourite South African Beaches

Langebaan

After this weeks cold spell, a day at the beach is prob­ably not high on the agenda but sum­mer will roll around again so here are a few of my favour­ite beaches …

In the Overberg, Nanny’s Beach, also known as Kammabaai, is a well loved Hermanus beach.  A firm favour­ite for a fam­ily day on the beach, Nanny’s Beach has great waves for surf­ing and body board­ing and also has safe swim­ming for the kids.  Milkwoods provide shade for the pic­nic and braai spots and to work off your lunch you can climb the many rocks around the beach!

Breakfast Bay, also in Hermanus is sheltered by the high dunes that flank the beach, mak­ing it a per­fect pic­nic spot if the day turns out to be a bit breezy!  It’s also very pop­u­lar with both sun­bathers and sandboarders.

Llandudno Beach

Cape Town is blessed with some spec­tac­u­lar beaches, and surely Llandudno must be one of the finest?  Framed by rocky points on either side, the white sand is per­fect for lazy hours of sun­bathing and beach bat!  The water is often a clear, Mediterranean blue - ideal for a refresh­ing dip on a hot summer’s day.  The waves at Llandudno are pretty strong; good for surf­ing but if you are not a con­fid­ent swim­mer its prob­ably wiser to stay closer to shore.

Elands Bay on the West Coast is well known for its beau­ti­ful scenery, laid back life­style and end­less beach.  Famous for its left surf­ing wave, the Elands Bay beach is inter­na­tion­ally recog­nised as a great surf­ing beach.  However, if bal­an­cing on a mov­ing board is not really your vibe, you could also try row­ing, sail­ing, moun­tain bik­ing or bird watch­ing.  And if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, just kick back with a bit­terly cold glass of some­thing and a freshly grilled cray­fish.  What more could you ask for?

Durban Beaches

Moving onto the Garden Route, although Central Beach in Plettenberg Bay is often the busiest of the Plett beaches, Robberg Beach, stretch­ing for kilo­metres between Robberg Peninsula and Beacon Island is pop­u­lar and abso­lutely per­fect for long, long, long walks!  Take the dogs down for an early morn­ing stroll and don’t for­get to keep your eyes peeled for pansy shells.

The beaches of the old ‘Transkei’, now form­ally part of the Eastern Cape, are prob­ably not as fre­quen­ted as ‘main­stream’ beaches but this very spe­cial area of South Africa has some remote, rural loc­a­tions offer­ing gor­geous, empty beaches where there might be more cows on the beach than there are people! 

Possibly my most favour­ite beach of them all is Zinkwazi Beach on the KwaZulu Natal Dolphin Coast.  The tem­per­at­ure of the sea is per­fect all year round, there are shark nets in place and life guards on duty dur­ing peak hol­i­day times.  Zinkwazi is an ideal beach for chil­dren, offer­ing small, safe swim­ming chan­nels, loads of rock pools and a lagoon for swim­ming and water sports.  For the very enthu­si­astic it’s also pos­sible to walk all the way along the beach to the Tugela River Mouth – but please bear in mind that this is a LONG walk so plenty of drink­ing water, a hat and sun­block are essen­tial items.

Hurry up Summer!

Useful Links:
For addi­tional, more detailed inform­a­tion about South Africa's Beaches see:
Cape Town Beaches
Eastern Cape Beaches
KwaZulu Natal Beaches