Water's Edge beach — we reveal another 'secret' Cape Town cove

Water's Edge Beach

The aver­age per­son doesn't even know the beach exists, unless you are pre­pared to explore, or someone you know hap­pens to nudge you in the right dir­ec­tion. And the bonus about this beach is that, not only is there shade under trees on a wall along­side the sea, but this same ledge is well out of the wind, should there be that dast­ardly south-easter blow­ing as it was on Saturday.

For little boys' parties, Water's Edge is just the best. The rock pools here remain largely untouched. The same goes for the beach, which lies in a little bay, out of the main body of the sea. There are few waves, the water is (slightly) warmer, and the beach dot­ted with rocks and boulders between which are sand­wiched count­less salt water pools inhab­ited by bright orange star­fish, sal­mon anemones, moluscs and other excit­ing sea creatures that I thought had all but aban­doned our busy coast­line in search of pas­tures green (or at least those untouched by human beings). Continued

Smitswinkelbaai — far from the madding crowds

Smitswinkelbaai

Both the res­id­ents of Smitswinkelbaai (Smitswinkel Bay) and I are thank­ing our respect­ive stars for the derth of devel­op­ment that means there is still no tarred road to bring all and sun­dry in their cars down to the beach at Smitswinkelbaai (which for some unknown reason, I kept call­ing Witsminkelbaai for most of the day until my other half and son finally dug me in the ribs in des­per­a­tion and declared loudly that 'for good­ness sake, couldn't I say it properly?').

Pronunciation aside, the gor­geously secluded beach, way out of the way, has to be the most beau­ti­ful 'find' I've made in the last six months. It isn't as if we don't drive past here fairly reg­u­larly, but there are sev­eral things that keep Smitswinkelbaai from becom­ing an over­crowded haunt rather than the deser­ted little enclave it is ... Continued

Cape Town — 5 top beaches with kids, top 3 fashionable beaches, top 3 beaches to avoid people and a couple of secret beaches for luck

So much to choose from, so little time.

Cape Town Beaches

It’s that silly sea­son again, and a few of us who have left plan­ning until the very last minute are sud­denly influ­enced by the sun­shine and the idea of a hol­i­day, and frantic­ally try­ing to find where best to grab a week’s worth of down time, if such a thing exists?

A word of advice, if I may: if you have chil­dren of any age then choose your des­tin­a­tion based on the beach. It's kind of like select­ing your out­fit based on your accessor­ies – they make it work. Kids and beaches are a guar­an­tee of rel­at­ive peace for you (par­tic­u­larly as their screams and shouts evap­or­ate into thin air with so many oth­ers about). Put any child on a safe beach and, provided you're care­ful of the sun, the hol­i­day is already a suc­cess ... Continued

29 Blue Flag Beaches in South Africa

The new sea­son of Blue Flag South Africa was launched at Muizenberg beach in Cape Town yes­ter­day where it was announced that 29 of South Africa's beaches have achieved Blue Flag status — an increase from 19 to 29 this year ... Continued

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! Continued

The KwaZulu Natal South Coast

South Coast

It is easy, when driv­ing through most of the South Coast area of KwaZulu Natal, to ima­gine that you have been trans­por­ted to a trop­ical island. Roads are edged with lush green veget­a­tion, or the ubi­quit­ous sugar cane and banana plant­a­tions. Towns such as Umkomaas, renowned for its angling, as well as a top class golf course, Shelly Beach, named for the pre­val­ence of shells found on beaches in the area, and Margate enjoy the year round bustle of tour­ists, as does Port Edward.

In fact, the cli­mate of this area is very much like a trop­ical island, and even in the middle of winter, it is not uncom­mon to see tour­ists on the beach, dressed not much more warmly than they would be in the sum­mer months. These beaches are often the first draw card for any vis­itor. The warm waters are enti­cing, and there are excel­lent waves in many places, mak­ing it ideal for surfers, body­boarders and other water sport enthu­si­asts. Continued

Glorious Gordons Bay

Gordons Bay

The area known today as Gordon’s Bay was named after Captain Robert James Gordon, an officer in the Dutch East India Company, who explored the area in 1778, how­ever, for many years before that, the area was known as Fish Hoek – the same name as another town on the oppos­ite side of False Bay. This little known fact is evid­enced by the name on the wall out­side the local Post Office. Another com­mon mis­con­cep­tion about the town is that the ini­tials GB (see pho­to­graph below), inscribed large on the moun­tain above the town, stand for Gordon’s Bay, how­ever, they com­mem­or­ate the General Botha, a decom­mis­sioned war­ship that used to be anchored in the har­bour, and was used for train­ing of navy cadets, who still reside at the Naval College, loc­ated near the Old Harbour.

Long the home to a rather elite group of loc­als, who live in the pala­tial homes clustered around the Old Harbour, Marina and Bikini Beach area of the town, the Mediterranean cli­mate and warm water enjoyed in the bay in sum­mer makes it a pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tion for vis­it­ors too. Continued

The Story of the Cape Coast

Muizenberg

To the first indi­gen­ous people of the Cape, the Khoisan, Table Mountain held a par­tic­u­lar sac­red sig­ni­fic­ance. There are many stor­ies about the great moun­tain, and in some of these, the moutain itself is a storyteller, over­look­ing the sur­round­ing area and telling about what it sees. Looking down from the moun­tain one can see the Cape coast­line weav­ing a jagged bound­ary between the land and the sea.

Perhaps one of the stor­ies that the moun­tain would tell would be about the thou­sands of people that come every year to visit those eph­em­eral patches of sand that line the coast. If Johannesburg is Egoli, (the city of gold in Sotho and is defined by its most pre­cious resource), then surely Cape Town is no dif­fer­ent? Perhaps then Cape Town is the city of sil­ver, her most pre­cious resource being the silver-sand beaches that seem to hold so many in thrall. Continued

Top 10 Topless Beaches

Forbes.com has again com­piled their annual list of Top Topless Beaches.

To make the Forbes Top 10 Topless Beach list, a set of cri­teria are imposed which include: a recog­nized con­sensus to go top­less, con­sist­ently sunny weather, beau­ti­ful scenery, a young, fun crowd and eas­ily access­ible bars, res­taur­ants and boutiques.

And The Top 10 Topless Beaches for 2006 are ... Continued