The Great White Elephant

We set off at 6:30 for the drive to Gansbaai, a port town further along the coast. It was an hour or so’s drive from Hermanus. On arrival, we were really efficiently checked in by Amy, a Marine Biologist, and joined by 28 other folk for our briefing for the cage dive. It was at this point that Amy gave us the news that since 2017, there has been a sharp decline in Great White sightings in Gansbaai. Once the Great White capital of the world, the arrival of two Orcas back in 2017 dessimated the local population. Several Great White corpses were found missing their livers, surgically extracted by the Orca; presumably eaten with Fava beans. I recall seeing this on an Attenborough documentary once, but had completely forgotten it was here. Looking around the room, a number of us were clearly crushed. One chap who’d trekked through from Cape Town that morning had his head in his hands, as, metaphorically, did I. 

We went ahead with the tour and after being kitted out with life jackets and waterproofs, boarded the boat. Bouncing out past the big breakers at the shore, the trip was smooth with much calmer conditions than yesterday. En route to the ‘dive’ site, we slowed down to watch a Southern Right whale mother and calf, and a penguin swimming far out to sea.  As we approached the shallows, expectant gulls circled and cried whilst a seal played around in the waters near the boat. We anchored up and pulled on our 10mm wetsuits (cold water) with Shona and me being in the first group into the cage, which was attached to the side of the boat and looked sturdy enough. A chap at the rear of the boat scooped jugs of chum-soup into the water, and two deck hands threw a line with fish heads and salmon tied in a tasty ball at the end.

Before long we were joined by several Bronze Whaler or ‘Copper’ sharks, named for their beautiful colouration when they catch the light. The balls of fish bits were dragged towards the cage giving us a very close view, with some up to around 3m long. We were repeatedly told to duck under, but sadly the visibility was near zero from in the cage and we were better watching them from above water. Nonetheless, we had a couple of shark-snout-in-cage moments.

We were down for 30 mins or so, followed by two other groups. The sharks were pretty, but without the Great Whites, for us it lacked the drama, and the species that we had sought. Suffice to say, we didn’t need a bigger boat.

Back at shore, we hopped back in the car and started the drive to Stellenbosch, which was a good ways back towards Cape Town (poor route planning). We’d both dropped a motion sickness tablet for the boat and its soporific effects made for a challenging drive.

We arrived at the Majeka hotel on the outskirts of Stellenbosch in the late afternoon and promptly napped. On waking we took a short walk around the gentrified area, up to a small woodland set of trails. It was quiet and safe, if a little too quiet. We took an Uber to a local restaurant that evening for dinner. Uber is used extensively here to get about and seems safe, efficient and cheap.

9th November 

I got up early the next day and went for a run up around the forest trails we’d visited the day before, while Shona popped to the hotel gym.

Stellenbosch is famous for South African wine. The town is surrounded by 150 wineries that are open to the public for tastings. I’d booked us on a wine tour (thrilling for the tee-total Shona), and so after breakfast, we were met by Jakes, a local chap who took us and an international group of visitors (Scotland, England, Canada, US, Peru, & Germany) on a tour of 5 different wineries for tastings, including lunch and a cheese & wine pairing. It was great value and I’d recommend winetourscapetown.com if you’re in the region.

Jakes knew a lot of about wine and the Stellenbosch region and entertained us well through the day. His Achilles heel was his mild road rage – often targeted at people not understanding how to use a ‘mini traffic circle’ (small roundabout).  Apparently the rules do differ for these; they’re the same as crossroads where the first to arrive goes first. You can understand the confusion.

Later that evening we saw the result of the confusion:

The day was great fun, with lovely weather and stunning scenery. I managed to be relatively sensible – unlike Karen, one of our group, who enjoyed her Rosé a lot… along with my Rosé, and several other peoples Rosés! After the tour, Shona and I were dropped off in Stellenbosch town for a wander around the lovely bustling centre.

The town itself is a bijou wine town, repleat with many galleries, wine bars, restaurants, boutiques and quirky independent shops. We enjoyed dinner at Helena’s restaurant, before taking an Uber back to the hotel for before an early night. If we booked again, we would definitely have stayed in the town rather than on the outskirts.