Washed up ashore

If you enjoy reading then I would strongly suggest that you get your hands on a book called “uitgespoeldes” or translated, the book is called Driftwood, written by Dalene Matthee and published posthumously.

A young child, later named Moses, escapes death after the ship he was traveling on with his family, gets wrecked on the South African south coast. He washes up ashore and is found by a man scavenging for valuable items among the wreckage. The year was around 1905.

Under the influence of this book, we took to the road! We ran and hiked and explored through the mountains, the dunes and the past, seeking out the routes his feet found first.

We travelled by car to a little five house settlement called Brandfontein where we parked; the cars noses brushing the beach. We grabbed our Camelbaks and set off towards Agulhas, the southernmost town in Africa. The sand was packed tightly, low tide was well timed this weekend:)

About 100m down the beach I picked up my first “paper nautilus” of the weekend:) I always get so excited when I find one still beautifully intact!

Along the route you can

expect to find abalone shells as big as your face, paper nautiluses fresh from the ocean, hundreds of “sterretjies” and “strandlopers” leaving footprints on the sand and a few protective oystercatchers ready to defend their nests by chirping and flying over your head when you pass to close to their homes.

The stretch is wild, a few little houses here and there, dating back to a time long forgotten. You will lose your breath at the beauty of the ocean, the waves crashing like mad men against the rocks, the dunes so high they seem to swallow you whole when the wind picks up the sand and tosses it in your face.

We long to find places as wild as our hearts, here we came close, but the search continues!