INTO THE WEST COAST !!

View over Hout Bay from Chapmans Peak

Hout Bay

Langabaan Beach

Sunset into the sea

The view from Strandlooper

Die Strandlooper

Old gas bottles are the braais

Course #1

Course #2

Live music, quite a character !

Course #3

The view while you pig out

Yummi !!

Course #4

Course #5

Course #6 Angel fish

View from the beach

Crayfish

Coffee brewing

Dessert

Well satisfied tummy right now !

"Fallen soldiers"!!

Getting a lovely sunglasses tan - yes I am a raccoon now!

After our swim in the atlantic brrrrr

Our trip up the West Coast of South Africa was delayed by a day due to weather. With no time constraints, we really are able to choose the best time to go traveling. Thursday morning we set out for Langebaan. We needed to drop something off with Jill (a close family friend) before we headed North. This little detour was great because we were finally able to drive the Chapmans Peak route to Hout Bay. What a beautiful part of the world. Even though we had threatening rain, the view out to sea and then of Hout Bay was amazing. So glad we can finally say that we have been along Chapmans Peak.

The ride was short and sweet through to Langebaan. We decided to take a bit of a shorter route through the West Coast National Park, and were very glad to have done that. By going this way we really got to appreciate the size of the lagoon. Although there does not seem to be much big wildlife in the National Park, Nick nearly killed the only small wildlife we saw – a snake. It slithered away so quickly that neither of us were able to identify it…thank goodness though! Although we’re not major fans of snakes we would rather it remain alive than be squashed!
We arrived in Langebaan early afternoon and headed straight for the camping area so we could get our boots off and into the sand. We were quite surprised to learn that our campsite, Leentjiesklip, doesn’t allow motorbikes to the camp spots. So we parked our bikes at the office and walked the whole 20 steps to our camp spot – don’t really understand the rule, but we obeyed none the less.
The sand at Langebaan Bay is white and scattered with thousands of mussel and other shells. We wandered along the beach watching the seagulls smash mussel shells against the rocks to open them. The sun slowly set into the sea (an odd experience for any Durbanite!) and we settled into bed early when the chilly sea breeze got a bit too much.
We headed out bright an early on Friday morning taking a walk down to the town of Langebaan. It was a good 45 min walk to find books and get some wine for our seafood feast which started at 12pm. Excitedly we arrived at ‘Die Strandlopers’ right on time. The chilled atmosphere was so unique for a restaurant and immediately we had our shoes off and toes in the sand under the table. The photos will give a better idea of what the restaurant looked like, but as you can imagine everything was themed around fishing and life on the coast. We had 10 courses, starting with mussels and homemade bread, followed by Harden fish, seafood paella, snoek and sweet potato (with apricot jam – recommended), lamb stew with waterblommetjies (a vegetable of sorts), Angel fish and snoek fish, Crayfish and lastly koeksisters and coffee. Needless to say we rolled home along the beach back to our campsite where we settled straight into bed, reading our new books bought that morning, but not before taking a dip in the atlantic ocean, brrrrrr!!.

The next leg of our journey takes us further up the West Coast where we looking forward to seeing the Cedarberg and Richtersveld.