Plettenberg Bay

Keurboom's River mouth at Plettenberg Bay viewed from the West

Plettenberg Bay is a town in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. This bustling seaside town is world famous for its scenic beauty and is popular with both local and domestic visitors. It was originally named "Bahia Formosa" (beautiful bay) by early Portuguese explorers and lies on South Africa's spectacular Garden Route 210 km from Port Elizabeth and +/- 600 km from Cape Town. It is located at 34°03′S 23°22′E.

History

Mesolithic

Caves in Nelson's Bay Cave and Matjies River Cave at nearby Keurboomstrand indicate they were inhabited for over 100000 years by Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) man and then later by ancestors of the Khoisan, who were possibly the same people who traded with the Portuguese survivors of the San Gonzales shipwreck. Their tools, ornaments and food debris can be viewed in these caves, which are still being excavated.

Modern

File:Plettenbergbaai.jpg

The bay of Plettenberg

Long before Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape, Portuguese explorers charted the bay in the 15th and 16th centuries, the first being Bartholomew Dias in 1487. Ninety years later Manuel da Perestrello aptly called it "Bahia Formosa" or the Beautiful Bay. The first European inhabitants were the 100 men stranded here for 9 months when the San Gonzales sank in 1630. In 1763 the first European settlers in the Bay were stock farmers, hunters and frontiersmen from the Western Cape.

A stinkwood navigational beacon was first erected on Beacon Island in 1771. The original was a square block of stinkwood, inscribed with the latitude and longitude of Plettenberg Bay and erected to enable mariners to check their marine chronometers. It was replaced by a stone one by Captain Sewell in 1881.

A barracks for the Dutch East India Company in 1776. In 1869 it was bought by St Peters Church and used as a rectory for the next 70 years. Today it is presently privately owned.

In 1787/88 by Johann Jerling and the Dutch East India Company, erected a Timber Shed, The remains can still be seen and are preserved as a National Monument.

A whaling station was built on Beacon Island in 1910, but was closed down in 1916. Parts of the iron slipway are still visible today.

Ecology

Plettenberg Bay hosts one of the largest seagull breading colonies along the South African coast at the mouth of the Keurboom's River, named after the indigenous keurboom tree.

Local vegetation varies from Cape Fynbos to indigenous forest further inland.

Wales are a common site in the bay during their breeding season, while dolphins are frequently seen the surf.

A delicate flower-shaped sea shell called a pansy shell is endemic to this part of the coast, and is used as the symbol representing the town. Looking for these shells on the beach is a popular activity amongst visitors and locals alike.

Robberg Peninsula is maintained as a nature reserve, allowing visitors to see many of the area's local plants and animals.

Climate & Geography

Plettenberg Bay is typified by an extremely mild maritime temperate climate with very few rainfall or temperature extremes. It is located within the Knysna Afromontane Forest biome, containing temperate gallery forest, supported by the mild temperatures and high, even distributed rainfall. Here follows the records for the closest climate station just to the east in the Tsitsikamma:

• Max/Min Temperatures: Jan: 23°C/17°C; Jul: 17°C/10°C; Rainfall: 945mm per annum

The bay is defined on the southern end by Cape Seal at the terminus of the Robberg (Afrikaans:Seal Mountain) Peninsula, separating the bay from the open Indian Ocean. It is one of the southern cape coast's typical "J-shaped" bays, which is formed by wave action eroding the shales of the Bokkeveld Group between the weather-resistant headlands comprised of the Table Mountain Group, both of the Cape Supergroup geological sequence of rocks. To the north, the Tsitsikamma and Langkloof Mountains keeps the moisture on the southern slopes of the mountains and prevent the temperature extremes of the interior reaching the bay. 'Plet' experienced a rare snow fall on the 20th and 21st of May 2007 due to a very icy, cold front.

Tourism

Tourism is a thriving industry in this area, starting in November when teenage school leavers are the first to descend upon the small town, followed thereafter by various waves of arrivals from abroad as well as other parts of South Africa.

The infrastructure of the town struggles to cope at the peak of the summer season, with traffic congestion, food shortages and booked-out restaurants being common.

Plettenberg Bay is also home to the world's first multi species free-roaming primate sanctuary Monkeyland, as well as the largest bird cage in the world, the Birds of Eden Sanctuary.

Beaches

The white, sandy beaches around the town are very popular with tourists, who have the following to choose from:

• Lookout Beach
• Robberg Beach
• Beacon Island Beach

See also

• Knysna
• Keurboomstrand, Western Cape
• Garden Route

References

• Plettenberg Bay Tourism Centre

External links

• Guest Accommodation & Activities Association Plettenberg Bay
• Map and photographs of Plettenberg Bay
• CXPress - Newspaper covering local current affairs
• The Plettenberg Bay Portal
• Monkeyland