The blues at BAY
Lambert’s is a West Coast town with few frills but birds, bonhomie and feasting aplenty, writes Janine Stephen
ALATE summer storm had washed over Lambert’s Bay two days before and the seas were still big enough to send tourists, on their way to Bird Island, scuttling for cover. West Coast waves chewed at the dolosse lining the breakwater, dousing the unwary in spray.
It was a long-gone summer storm that dashed the HMS Sybille onto rocks off the farm Steenbokfontein, back in the days of the South African War. Traces of the wrecked British gunboat are still entwined in the stories told by Lambert’s Bay locals — and scattered about town. A massive battered propeller squats outside the local museum; maritime artefacts are glassed into exhibits in a guesthouse wall.
The Sybille kind of followed me around the place. Nothing like the detritus of a wreck to make you feel alive.
But on that sun-washed morning, the focus was 8 000 pairs of blue-eyed Cape gannets on Bird Island. It’s one of six breeding sites in the world and the only one that can be accessed via a simple stroll. In the bird hide, Cape-Nature’s Yves Chesselet had his binoculars fixed on the sea of birds — or more specifically, on the spotted gannet babies, now the size of their beleaguered parents and sometimes a good deal fatter.
On that very April day, some of the chicks were flying for the first time. Ungainly, they stumbled over guano and shells to rocks at the sea’s edge, or took off at a lumbering run. Most landed in choppy waves not nearly far enough off shore.
The prize was calmer water a little further out, where they could practise taking off, diving and all such gannet essentials. The thing is, once they’d taken flight, they wouldn’t be coming back, not even once for a bit of a gossip and a rest. Until — hopefully — they came back to raise their own babies one day. “They just keep flying,” said Chesselet.
He was counting the chicks that had made it, an intense observation job that requires full attention. Well over 2 000 of about 5 000 chicks had already left. But something like 430 babies had been lost — and more than 400 of these had fallen prey to just one rogue seal. Greedy bugger. All the more reason to cheer the youngsters who made it.
Lambert’s harbour is no longer as busy a fishing hub as it once was (big business here is French fries: loads of chips get sliced up in the local potato factory). But the town is packed with places to eat fresh seafood and the most famous of these is a little out of town.
Muisbosskerm (literally “mouse bush shelter” as the walls are made of grey “bossies”, architecture conceived by nomadic herders) is the brainchild of the Turner family. On duty at sunset was Tertius Turner, the 43-year-old son of Edward and Elmien, who started this rustic restaurant for their friends in 1986.
Edward died about 17 months ago, but Muisbosskerm, set on a ridiculously scenic patch of beach, seems to be doing as well as ever. Patrons, bundled up in blankets and windbreakers against the spray, tucked gannet-eyed into a never-ending buffet of seafood.
Platters of smoked angelfish, snoek, yellowtail, tuna, and white stumpnose just kept coming and the place hissed with braais and bubbling pots. Afrikaans songs circled the guests, who were nose down in
paella and caramelised sweet potatoes and surprisingly silent, intent on leaving a corner for lobsters and maybe a koeksister. It’s a three-hour feast, and worth pacing yourself.
Turner was first to mention the Sybille. There’s lots of marine life around the wreck and he liked to dive there before an accident damaged his hearing. Around the fire, he told of artefacts that used to wash up or be scavenged: brass portholes, cannon balls … Many Lambert’s families had a few bits of Sybille, he said. His dad used to have some items up at Muisbosskerm, but they were nicked by kids searching for metal to sell.
Lambert’s Bay also has grapevines — in fact, most of the 2013 Sir Lambert sauvignon blanc went straight to the US, UK and Scandinavia. It’s the climate that makes the whites so interesting, said winemaker Thys Louw, that lovely cold Atlantic air.
Marais Brand of the Red Rock Café hopes to soon offer tastings focusing on the local wines that make up the tiny but tasty West Coast wine route.
The next morning, I met Kitta Burger in the Plaaskombuis at Steenbokfontein. The day had started with a silent amble around her labyrinth, tucked away beside a stony outcrop alive with rock rabbits and kestrels. Burger made this meditative circular walk, lined with white stones, in about a week. Every so often someone drops by to see it, including once a woman who had walked 97 labyrinths around the world and was happy to add another to her collection.
Before anyone sets off, Burger gives them a tub full of pebbles adorned with wise words. At the centre of the circle, she says, sit down and take a stone from the tub and see what it says. (Mine turned out to be “hope”, which was nice.) A little further away, another beautiful outcrop houses some faded rock art and spectacular caves, one of which has been sifted through by archaeologists.
Steenbokfontein has been in Burger’s family since 1833. The Plaaskombuis was built in 1864, and its thick walls now house a fascinating collection of family memorabilia that Burger is all too happy to share with visitors.
“I like people and I thought, how do I get people here?” she said. By offering hearty meals of pot-roasted lamb, mussel soup and green bean stew — all cooked on the old Plaaskombuis range (prior booking essential). And by sharing family stories.
One of the nicest was that after the wreck of the Sybille (which was in Lambert’s to try to counter gun-running during the war), an engineer from Sheffield, sent to try to salvage the wreck, met and fell in love with a Burger daughter. For years it was a secret affair, as English/Afrikaner relations were morethan strained, but love eventually won out and young Martha and Harry Blades married in Leipoldtville (in Afrikaans) and again in Cape Town, in English. Their kids returned to the farm not all that long ago for a reunion.
I never got to the beach at low tide to see if I could spot what’s left of the Sybille, but I did find pieces of her in the local museum. Apparently, bits of the ship stood in black plastic bags for years, waiting for attention, but the artefacts now have their own corner.
But there was a lot I missed, from a good look at the endless iron-ore trains — 340 wagons and eight locomotives — that rumble past town, to a house built with whale bones and the highly rated farmers’ market.
Much like those fattened gannet chicks, I reckon I’ll come back to Lambert’s before too long.