SA14 Shark Attack, Africa's Southern Point, A 164,000 year old Khoisan Home.
Saturday, 16 April 2016 11:51 pm
The light house we visited yesterday was near Gansbaai ( actually closer to Kleinbaai) and that is the town where the Shark Cage Diving evolved.
Do we want to do it ?
Definitely No !, No!, Maybe No ! Maybe....etc.
Well we booked for this morning !
The Skuers are Antartica birds that are hand fed on the 15minute travel to Shark Alley.
We chose SharkLady, by chance,...and very pleased we did. THE original operator and only 16 on the boat. Some boats have up to 30+.
A bit of chum in the water and all too soon the sharks are circling.
This guy has some fish heads on a rope and encourages them close to the wire cage.
As I enter the cage with 4 others the action starts!
In a cage and clothed in a black wet suit looking just like a sea lion - their favourite food !
They attack sometimes from deep down surfacing vertically to attack the sea lion.
The largest shark we saw was 3.5 metres, they have had up to 6 metres visit !
From here they tagged a shark that swam to Australia in 99 days.
Cape Agulhas:
Africa’s Most Southern Point.
The old Portuguese navigators named it Agulhas after the compass needle, because at this geographical point in Africa the needle points due north without any magnetic variation.
Here three oceans meet; the Indian, the Atlantic and the Antarctic.
From this point we can only travel north !
A049 : Arniston Campground
Cost: R120/site
Altitude: 25 metres
S 34* 40.159 E 20* 13.772
Today: 148 Km
Trip Total: 8,938 Km
Sunday 17th April 2016:
Arniston is a small fishing village and has been for a long time.
The town was named after the old sailing ship Arniston that sank just off shore on the 30th May 1815 with the loss of 397 lives.
It was more that 97 years before this tragic record was broken with the sinking of the Titanic.
It is a quaint old town with these original stone washed fishing houses.
De Hoop Nature Reserve and the endangered Cape Mountain Zebras.
Only 50 are in the park and we were very lucks to see them.
The stripes do not go under the belly as do the African Zebras.
Also our first Eland
A050 : De Hoop Nature Reserve Campground .
Cost: R320/site Our most expensive but the shower and bathroom facilities the best !
Altitude: 22 metres
S 34* 27.102 E 20* 24.111
Today: 116 Km
Trip Total: 9,055 Km
Monday 18th April 2016:
Another new animal spotted:
The Bontebok
En-route today we used the only remaining human powered punt left in Sth Africa.
At Malagas it crossed the Breede River and has been in operation since 1860.
I had to get involved and give the boys a hand. You wrap the chain around the wire cable and walk the length of the punt pulling the punt across the river. Un-wrap and return to the start.
About 30 times gets you across the river.
Cost R48 ( A$4.80 )
Now camped up at Mossel Bay.
This is where Bartolomei Dias landed on his epic voyage in 1488. In the Dias Museum is this exact scale replica that was built in Portugal and sailed from Lisbon in 1987 arriving in Mossel Bay on 3rd February 1988, exactly 500 years after Dias’s original voyage.
A051 : The Point Campground.
Cost: R127/site (A$12)
Altitude: 5 metres
S 34* 11.044 E 22* 09.442
Today: 211 Km
Trip Total: 9,266 Km
Tuesday 19th April 2016:
The oldest cave sediments date back 400,00 years when the ancient sea floor was at the cave entrance. People began to live in the cave around 164,000 years ago when the sea was about 3 kilometres away, then as the sea retreated because of further ice ages the cave was rarely inhabited. The sea returned 120,000 years back and the cave became a regular place for families and huge middens developed from their seafood scraps.
The cave importance is significant because it can date early stone tool manufacturing and the use of pigments for personal use and cave painting.
In the afternoon we head into the mountains !