At Your Wit’s End? Go to Witsand.
(This article has been printed in the Zambian Traveller)
by George Irwin

My fiancé and I had had enough. We’d been working long days for too long. Days were blurring into each other, work had become monotonous long ago and we’d even lost interest in Grey’s Anatomy. That’s serious. To cap it all off, a drunk off-duty policeman had hit our car at speed, writing ours off and putting us in hospital for five days. The only bright side was that we confirmed that our employers were actually petty-minded 12-year-olds. We had found our wits’ end. After resigning, we found ourselves heading from Swellendam down the R322 towards Witsand.

We had been in this part of the world before, albeit on the western side of the Breede River and in summer. In the dry, dusty and brown summer conditions, we hadn’t been all that impressed. The landscape felt barren and uninviting. Remote farms seemed to offer little in the way of prosperity and the innumerate prides of ostrich looked sullen. We had quickly – and rashly, as it turns out – decided that we wouldn’t be coming back in a hurry. It was therefore without much enthusiasm that we turned off the N2 and started down the dirt road towards Witsand.

It was now winter. June. There had already been good rainfall and it showed. The contrast with our summer drive couldn’t have been greater. This time, rolling, lush, green hills gave way to a rich, clear blue sky and the dusty road was now a muddy, slippery mess. Which I enjoyed, at least. The road eventually meets the Breede River, which flows down from Swellendam, through Malgas and on to San Sebastian Bay at Witsand. It is a large river and is easily navigable as far as Malgas and beyond; the Barry’s trading company relied heavily on the river to transport goods to Swellendam in the 19th century.

Witsand lies on the eastern side of the river’s mouth and has grown to incorporate Port Beaufort, which is now part of Witsand in all but name. The much smaller settlement of Infanta graces the opposite riverbank, nearly 600m away.

Both are little more than collections of houses, built up throughout the 1980s and ’90s as holiday homes for the Western Cape’s successful farming community. Witsand, probably thanks to an alternative tarred road from the N2, has grown to be a fairly sizeable village, while Infanta – harder to reach – remains a small string of large houses dotted along the coastline. Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, but Witsand’s development has not been achieved with any tribute to aesthetics.

As we explored the town, it quickly dawned on us that entertainment in Witsand is entirely self-made. Two small, uninviting, poorly-stocked shops serve the town with the most basic of supplies. Two café’s offer the most rudimentary form of paid-for eating and the tourism information office is usually closed. We quickly realised that this was not so much a town, but a conglomeration of holiday homes. It was with sinking heart that we found our way to our home from home for the next two weeks.

Friends of ours own a house in the Port Beaufort section of Witsand. It is within the grounds of the Breede River Lodge and is not often used. After a few days in Cape Town, we decided a getaway was required and their home was kindly offered. Now that we were actually in Witsand, we weren’t quite sure whether we’d last two weeks, but with no other option, we began to unload the car. The house is the last in a row of five on a steep hillside rising out of the Breede River. The verandah has sweeping views across the river to Infanta and across the sandbar and out to sea. It is a pretty good view.

The DSTV was broken. Blackie Swarts arrived to fix it. He is one of few people who live in Witsand year-round and has lived here for over 30 years. This being an exclusively Afrikaans-speaking town, his limited English and my non-existent Afrikaans got on well. “Here for the weekend?”

“No,” I responded, “probably a week or so.”

“A week! What will you do?” I wasn’t sure. And neither was he. He suggested we could walk 4-5km along the beach to Moodie’s Well, “but you won’t find it”. Probably not then. With more enthusiasm: “The church is pretty”. It was an inauspicious beginning.

The following day we began to explore. We drove to the two beaches; one curling 4 or 5km inside San Sebastian Bay; the other running along the banks of the Breede River from its mouth. Both are certainly worthy of good walks and looked to be deserted.

We drove on and had a look at the two shops; Nella Se Winkel has better firewood, but fewer goods; Sands has more to choose from, but only offered large, wet logs. This was an important decision as the fireplace in our house was definitely going to be called into action during the cold evenings. We split our allegiances. The two restaurants – The Whaler’s Grill and The Anchorage – were both as uninspiring as each other and were consequently struck off the list of things to do. Perhaps unfair not to give them a chance, but it didn’t look like anyone else had.

A few days went by and little happened. In fact, I’m not sure we left the house. A few fisherman appeared on the river over the weekend and failed to catch anything. A kite-surfer launched from Infanta and entertained us for a while, until he seemed to trip over himself and – painfully, I’m sure – nose-dive into the cold water. He didn’t come back. And don’t worry – I did check with the binoculars – definitely a man. The tides came in and out, the weather changed regularly and a Pied Kingfisher fished in front of us – with more success – for a few days. In short, the world went past and left us entirely alone.

We went for a few walks on the beach, but without a dog. This makes it tricky to justify walking endless miles along unchanging sandy shorelines; dogs provide purpose to this otherwise futile endeavour. On our third beach walk, as I was beginning to lose patience, a remarkable thing happened. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a splash out at sea. I looked again and sure enough, a Southern Right Whale came soaring out of the ocean less than 400m off-shore. I had seen whales from a boat before, but I had never experienced the excitement of seeing one of nature’s Goliaths without deliberately going in search of it. Boat-based whale-watching has a slight sense of the wildlife park about it, but to see a whale and be unhindered by our mechanical achievements is a far more liberating experience.

It is true that Witsand offers fishermen one of the best opportunities for sport fishing in the Western Cape, if not South Africa. And thanks to the prevailing winds, the protective sandbanks and shallow waters, the Breed River’s mouth is an excellent spot for kitesurfing. But for me, it is the opportunity to watch one of nature’s most remarkable creatures in such a natural environment which is Wisand’s true appeal.

Indeed, San Sebastian Bay is known as ‘The Whale Nursery of South Africa’, thanks to the huge numbers of Southern Right Whales which come here every year between June and November to breed, calve and mate. From the beautiful beaches of Witsand and even – dare I say it – the tables of The Anchorage Restaurant, the whale-watching is unlike any other wildlife experience in the country.

We spent what is probably an unusually long time in Witsand. We drove around the countryside a bit, crossing the only hand-drawn pontoon in South Africa at Malgas and continuing on to the beautiful De Hoop Nature Reserve. We also did a short 4×4 trail in the dunes near Witsand, but mostly, we did what very few people seem to do in Witsand – we relaxed. While fisherman got up at ridiculous hours of the morning, thrashing the river all day long and while kite-surfers raced up and down the river, we relaxed in one of the most quiet and liberating places I’ve been to. The combination of solitude and quiet nature is Witsand’s real charm. At your wit’s end? Go to Witsand.