farm 215 | retreat accommodation in the overberg | western cape

farm 215
overberg
south africa
nature retreat & fynbos reserve

a 4-star country house on the "fynbos road" between stanford & cape agulhas - southern overberg - western cape

overberg

"The Overberg - untouched and largely undiscovered in places - has developed less rapidly than the rest of South Africa's regions. Even today you'll find the pace of life leisurely and the people most friendly and unassuming, unspoilt by the excesses of the city. Of course, nature has benefited most from the erstwhile seclusion. Most of the coastline remains pristine. The large numbers of whales, sharks and birds along the shores draw watchers from all over the globe. And the unique fynbos has engendered a world-wide following of flora fundi."

The above is a quote from the brochure "Overberg, marine and fynbos route", published by Overberg Tourism. They are right of course. Still, the San and the Khoi were obviously the first to have discovered all corners of the Overberg and the whale coast. Even today you'll find many indicators of that, such as the Khoi knowledge of the medicinal values of the local fynbos, a part of which today is still surviving in some coloured and Afrikaner communities, descending from early settlers. Various geographical names in the area are still the original Khoi name like "Kars" (the name of a river between Napier and Caledon) or are translations from Khoi such as "Riviersonderend" (River without end) from the original Khoi "Kannakamkanna".

Looking down from farm 215, you can actually see quite a bit of the Whale coast and what the Overberg has to offer: Pearly Beach, the longest undisturbed sand-beach of the Overberg; Danger Point, the peninsula of doom for the famous HMS Birkenhead; Dyer Island & Geyser Rock, home to 50.000 Cape fur seals, thousands of African penguins and numerous other birds; the Agulhas plains (stretching from Cape Agulhas to Gansbaai), haven to some of the rarest plant-species in the world and the Atlantic ocean, where the Great white sharks cruise and the Southern right whales float just under the shore. Farm 215 itself of course represents 800 hectares of the finest fynbos in the Overberg. Various other public and private reserves in the area guarantee the future safeguarding of the specific Cape Flora ("fynbos") in the Overberg.

Gansbaai has placed itself firmly on the map of the Whale coast as one of the world's best land based whale watching spots (from the rocks in its suburb De Kelders, sublimely positioned on the Walker Bay) and as the centre of shark diving to come eye to eye with the Great White Shark from the safety of a cage lowered into the water.

There are no cities and only a few towns in the Overberg: some seaside-towns such as Gansbaai, Hermanus and Arniston, mountain places such as Greyton and Genadendal and typical agricultural towns such as Bredasdorp and Caledon. They all have a character of their own and most are definitely worth a visit.

Though some people have a problem with swimming in the seas around Gansbaai because of sharks (not justified) and the -sometimes- hectic waves and strong currents (justified, one should be careful), there are a lot of places absolutely safe for swimming. In any case -swimming or no swimming- the miles and miles of pristine beaches on both sides of the Danger Point Peninsula are inviting enough in themselves.

Since people were allowed free movement in the country after he fall of apartheid, townships such as Zwelihle, near Hermanus and Masakhane, near Gansbaai have developed from a few houses to booming towns. Masakhane works hard to be part of the tourist development of the region.

From the Afrikaans geographical names such as Zeekoevlei (hippopotamus swamp), Buffeljagsberg (mountain of buffalo hunt), Hartebeeskloof (the original name of one of the farms making up farm 215 and named after the red Hartebeest) and Khoi names such as Gantouw (eland's path) it can be concluded that enormous amounts of animals once roamed in the Overberg including cape lions, elephants and the blue buck (endemic to the Western Cape and extinct). Still today various animals can be seen in the Overberg in their original habitat, either in nature reserves or in the wild.

De Hoop Nature Reserve and Marine Protected Area is the largest of the nature reserves in the area (35.846 ha and a coastline of 45 km). De Hoop Nature Reserve contains 89 mammal species (e.g. cape mountain zebra, eland, red hartebeest, bontebok and leopard), and over 250 bird species including the last remaining breeding colony of cape vultures in the Western Cape. The sea offshore of De Hoop Nature Reserve is the breeding grounds for the southern right whale.

The smaller Bontebok National Park (3.280 ha) is one of the oldest national parks in the world, established in 1837 to save the endemic bontebok from extinction. Bontebok can also be seen in Salmonsdam Nature Reserve, a mountain catchment area close to farm 215 with a stunning waterfall. Fernkloof Nature Reserve, near Hermanus, should also be mentioned, not so much because of its rich animal life, but because of its extremely rich fynbos of which more than 44 species are endemic and because they have walking sticks on loan. Obviously a lot of smaller and medium sized animals are still roaming free in places like Fernkloof Nature Reserve and farm 215.

En route to or from De Hoop Nature Reserve, you more or less pass Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa and officially the point where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. Nature does not follow human's desire to have clear cut borders and it is more or less the whole of the shoreline of the Overberg that is the meeting place between the two oceans. The warmer Indian ocean meeting the colder Atlantic ocean is cause for the unusual diversity of plant and animal habitats in the Overberg and along its shores. A new national park with an ambitious program, the Agulhas National Park, has been established to protect the unique natural characteristics of the Overberg.
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