Lamberts Bay on the fly
On Bird Island 20,000 Cape gannets create mesmerising jigsaw puzzles
The barman looks as bored as the stuffed kudu on the wall next to him.
It’s mid-30s outside and my longsuffering wife and I have been looking forward to a cold fizzy drink for the last 100km of dusty dirt track through the parched Tankwa Karoo.
Though the taciturn bar tender tells us his fridges are broken, he says he can still sell us a cold beer or a small coke from a backup icebox.
We opt for the latter, but are disappointed when he tells us he has no crisps or biltong. Deliveries are few and far between on the 270km stretch of road between Ceres and Calvinia, it seems.
We climb back into the expedition bakkie we’ve loaned for the weekend and aim it north once more.
We’re on a mission to cross the Doring River, just after it joins the Biedouw River at a farm called Uitspankraal, and then to make our way to Lamberts Bay.
It lies almost on the border of the Northern and Western Cape and can be crossed in only the dry summer months.
Yet, not only is the once reasonably rough gravel pass apparently now a grade 1-2 4x4 track, just getting to its starting point is proving a challenge.
I know we took the correct turnoff from the R355 (67km south of Calvinia, there was an ancient Uitspankraal signboard) but when we are faced with a farm gate marked Dassiekloof, we turn the bakkie around and make for a side route we’d seen earlier.
After half an hour of gate opening along “twee-spoor’” tracks we end up at a farm house surrounded by disgruntled-looking goats.
Determined to ask for directions, I wade through the bleating throng and call out to anyone in the house and surrounding sheds.
No answer.
The farmer’s bakkie is standing there, windows open, keys in the ignition; but there’s no-one about. I’m starting to feel a bit creeped out. Where are the people? Are they OK? Have they maybe been murdered? Or do they just not take kindly to strangers calling during siesta time?
With scenes of the slasher movie,
Wrong Turn, screening in my mind’s eye, I beat a retreat back to the bakkie where I find my wife looking around furtively, she too is feeling we need to get out of Dodge, sooner rather than later.
Retracing our tracks in rally mode, we are later redirected — this time thankfully by an Ouma Greyvenstein lookalike surrounded by smiling sheepdogs — back to the Dassiekloof track.
Apparently the road we’re looking for skirts the Dassiekloof farmhouse and heads west through the foothills of the Biedouw mountains.
Once on the right track, we rock and roll up and over the challenging Uitspankraal Pass, marvelling at the jaw-dropping views and how our bespoke bakkie crushes all obstacles in its path.
When we get to the Doring River it’s completely dry, and besides the rough approach, a few rock obstacles and some thick sand, our expedition’s Rubicon is a bit of an anticlimax.
If we’d not got lost in the badlands of our heat-dazed imaginations earlier, we would have stopped at the Madwaleni Pub at Uitspankraal Farm for a cold beer.
But we still have 150km (a third of it dirt track) to Lamberts Bay and a sundowner on the beach is calling.
We’ve booked budget accommodation there, hoping to use the savings on sightseeing and seafood.
After our sundowner, we arrive at our cheap and cheerful digs and it’s somewhat dinkier than I’d thought.
Yet, Tjippie, a reimagined fish and chips shop on the outskirts of the business district, is nothing if not authentic Lamberts Bay; and comfortable, too. The next day we’re off exploring early.
Unfortunately, the Sandveld museum across the way is closed on weekends, so we opt for a bit of retail therapy instead.
The boho-chic Driftwood Den impresses most, it has a large range of Indo-Asian clothing, as well as local curios.
It’s still too early for a wine-tasting sortie of local offerings at nearby Roestyd and we make straight for Bird Island.
It’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit when staying over in Lamberts Bay previously, but never had the time.
Seeing 20,000 Cape gannets in front of you, their exquisitely yellow and black painted faces darting back and forth in ritualistic greetings and poses, is both mesmerising and confusing.
It’s the mother of all complicated jigsaw puzzles, where it’s best to home in on one section at a time (aided by camera lenses or binoculars) to extract full value.
The two-storey faux rock bird hide offers viewers a more sanitised behind-glass experience on the ground floor, or the full visceral treatment in the open-to-the-elements grotto above. It’s here that your senses are assaulted and your memory stained.
After visiting the exhibition hall, watching a short video and walking to the end of the jetty, we’ve built up an appetite.
There are a number of other good eateries in Lamberts Bay but Isabellas in the harbour is not only the closest, it’s a long-time favourite.
We take the railway service road south to Elands Bay the next day.
It runs parallel to the SaldanhaSishen freight line that transports about 60-million tonnes of iron ore a year in trains often several kilometres in length and sometimes comprising more than 300 wagons.
Besides being within sight of the sea and its welcome cooling effects, the road passes by the Wadrifsoutpan, a favourite feeding site for flamingos.
Unfortunately, the white and pink corps de ballet is not here today, but we happily rest our gazes on a large group of Hartlaub gulls in the distance, watching their comings and goings with interest.
In Elands Bay, we take a walk along the banks of the Kruis River, better known as Verlorenvlei.
A Ramsar-registered site, Verlorenvlei boasts abundant bird life (240 species), good fishing and many other water activities. It stretches about 30km — from Elands Bay to Redelinghuys — and, at about 1,500ha, is one of the largest natural wetlands left in SA.
Here we see blackwinged stilts, yellowbilled ducks, redknobbed coots, a bank cormorant and numerous others.
It’s along this vlei in 1784 that controversial French explorer Francois le Vaillant spent 11 days, adding 132 birds to his collection.
It was a period that occasioned him to say: “Verloren Vlei is the only place for an ornithologist to fix his residence who would wish in a short time to procure a complete collection of the web-footed and shore birds of Africa.”
Compared to Le Vaillant, our visit is a mere dalliance; but we extend our birdwatching foray by taking a slow drive towards Redelinghuys, stopping wherever we find gaps in the reeds and poking our binoculars through them.
We’re rewarded with many sightings of the gangster gourmands of the birding world, one of my favourites: the white pelican.
Apparently, they eat about a quarter of their body weight daily and sometimes even steal fish from other birds, like cormorants.
Perhaps it’s not entirely the pelican’s fault, though, because as everybody knows, “His beak can hold more than his bellican.”
I’m starting to feel a bit creeped out. Where are the people? Are they OK?