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Either way, you’ll find a string of coastal settlements, beautiful beaches, great residential estates, and more golf courses than you can shake a stick at. But that’s where the resemblance ends. ‘Everyone knows’ the North Coast is better than the South Coast.
But that doesn’t mean the South Coast has less to offer. In fact, I think it has more. They both have beautiful beaches with great surf, but the South Coast has better surf. And better diving. In fact, the South Coast may well be one of the most underrated dive destinations in the world. The iconic Protea Banks is eight kilometres out to sea, in the teeth of the Mozambique Current, and with the top of the reef at 36 metres, it’s definitely an advanced dive. Oh — and then there are the sharks. Yup. Protea Banks is teeming with sharks — white sharks, tiger sharks, hammerheads, Zambezis, raggies, you name it. It’s a bucket-list site for experienced divers, but don’t worry — there are also two great offshore reefs closer to shore that have loads of great dive sites, many of which are suitable for beginners. And for slightly drier adventures, Oribi Gorge is just inland.
THINK SIDEWAYS
The North Coast is glitzy and glam, oh-so-chic, and oh-so- slick. But the South Coast is, well, not slick, and it’s certainly not glitzy. It’s kind of laid-back and chilled, and you may notice the property prices are decidedly more affordable. Nobody really knows why. It just is — the larnies have always headed to the North Coast, and the not-so-larnies to the South. And maybe that’s part of it.
The South Coast seems to have become a bit of a magnet for lateral thinkers, people who are interested in doing things — and doing them their way. It’s kind of a maverick place, a place to try something new, and stretch the limits of what ‘everyone knows’ is possible. I was only there for a couple of days, and I was pretty exhausted, so I planned to actively and intentionally do nothing. I slept, chilled, looked at the sea, walked on the beach, had supper with a friend who lives there and lunch with another friend. I drank quite a bit of very good merlot, and some excellent coffee. I’d say that I had succeeded in my quest.
PURPLE UNICORNS AND RETRO FAMILY HOLIDAYS
Sometimes you have to visit a place to find out what is there, and — wow! — do I have a wish list for my next visit. Seriously — I plan to do some purple unicorn therapy (not sure what it is but I must try it) and equine therapy. I know what that is, and I am a great believer in the healing power of horse sense. Seriously, there is a whole slew of alternative-type people who offer a range of services from simple massages, reflexology and aromatherapy to hypnosis training, mindful movement, quantum biofeedback and a whole lot more. There are yoga retreats, surf and yoga retreats, and retreats on holistic farms where you can see, smell, touch and taste food forests. Once you step beyond the kind of dated beachfront, you will see why the South Coast is so special.
And that dated beachfront is another thing. Yes, you could say it’s dated, or you could say it’s classic, even vintage. You know, like that pair of bell bottoms you dug out of the spare room cupboard, or your collection of vinyl you didn’t get around to decluttering in the 1990s. Or imbuia ball-and-claw furniture … hmm, maybe I’m getting a bit ahead of myself there.
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AN OLD CLASSIC
Some of these beachfront hotels have been around for ever, and they haven’t changed except to keep up with guests’ demands for air conditioning, cappuccino machines, free Wi- Fi, spas, and on-site gyms. I stayed at Pumula Beach Hotel — one of those old-time family hotels with coco pops on the breakfast buffet, a games room for teens, trampolines, and loads of kiddies’ activities, including a mini archery range where I saw a toddler doing target practice with what looked to be an inflatable bow and arrow while Mom and Dad looked on proudly.
But it’s not just a family hotel. Surfers stay there, groups of friends stay there, singletons stay there, and couples stay there. And, somehow, the hordes of kids just get swallowed up in all the space, so they don’t cramp the style of romantic couples or destroy the peace of strung-out guests who just need to take some time out. I think I qualified as the latter.
WITH GOOD COFFEE, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
breakfast buffet, a games room for teens, trampolines, and loads of kiddies’ activities, including a mini archery range where I saw a toddler doing target practice with what looked to be an inflatable bow and arrow while Mom and Dad looked on proudly.
But it’s not just a family hotel. Surfers stay there, groups of friends stay there, singletons stay there, and couples stay there. And, somehow, the hordes of kids just get swallowed up in all the space, so they don’t cramp the style of romantic couples or destroy the peace of strung-out guests who just need to take some time out. I think I qualified as the latter.
One of the reasons I chose to stay where I did was its proximity to one of South Africa’s oldest coffee farms. Just another of the maverick enterprises the South Coast seems to attract. Beaver Creek is the world’s southernmost coffee plantation where the Cummings family have been farming coffee for three generations — on the South Coast, outside of the tropics and not at altitude, breaking all the rules by growing quality coffee where ‘everyone knows’ it can’t be grown. And that’s pretty much what I learned on my short stay — to question what ‘everyone knows’ because, hey, it’s never that simple, and ‘everyone’ can’t always be right.
