farm 215 | Elim |Stanford | Napier | Gansbaai | Baardskeerdersbos | Hermanus | Overberg | Western Cape

farm 215
overberg
south africa
nature retreat & fynbos reserve

a 4-star country house on the "fynbos road" between stanford & cape agulhas - southern overberg - western cape

overbergoverberg towns

The Southern Overberg is a land mass shaped as half of an ellipse, cut off to the north by the N2 and surrounded by sea: the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian ocean to the east. Cape Agulhas, the southern-most point of Africa in the middle.

The Overberg is the only region where the main artery of the Western Cape, the N2, is not bordering the sea and - though transport takes longer - it has benefited the beauty, natural richness and tranquillity of the Overberg.

There are no cities in the Overberg. With the exception of Hermanus, that quickly developed along the small stretch between the ocean and the mountains into a conglomerate of connected towns and suburbs, all towns in the Overberg (of which there are not many anyway) are small, compact and still have the pace and leisure of characteristic rural towns. There is not a single traffic light in the Overberg outside of Hermanus.

Towns in the greater Overberg come in all varieties. Genadendal, the oldest mission station in South Africa, has not changed its appearance at all for more than a hundred years. The Victorian village of Greyton, glued against the Majestic Riviersonderend Mountains, has now developed into a weekend hide-away of the more affluent Cape Townians. Waenhuiskrans (its other name -to make matters confusing- is "Arniston" after the East India Man which was wrecked nearby in 1815) is an old fishing town with small white washed thatch cottages immediately on the sea and is famous for its huge tidal cave that can only be accessed at low tide. Caledon, immediately on the N2, makes a somewhat bleak and practical impression in spite of the Caledon Spa and Casino built around the hot mineral springs just outside town. The Caledon Wildflower Garden on the other side of the N2, is an indigenous wild flower garden with a surprising amount of different fynbos-species.

Closer to farm 215 are Stanford, Napier, Elim and Gansbaai, all three typical Overberg towns in their own right, though very different from each other.

Elim
Elim, in the middle of the Southern Overberg, is a beautiful little town on the same road as the access-gate to farm 215. The whole of the town is a conservation area. Elim was founded in 1824 as a moravion mission town and still today the church is the middle point of almost everything. The old church and adjacent buildings as well as the Old Mill House have been proclaimed a national monument. After the abolition of slavery in 1834, many freed people settled in Elim and hence Elim boasts the only monument in South Africa commemorating the liberation of slaves. The Geelkop Nature Reserve, a few km out of town (obviously also owned by the church) harbours one of the remaining patches of so-called "Elim Fynbos", a vegetation type that is restricted to a small part of the Overberg around Elim (and of which a remnant can be found in the reserve of farm 215 as well). The Geelkop reserve is not very big (450 ha), but since the plants are dwarf fynbos species which belong to the rarest plant species on earth, it perhaps does not need so much space.

Stanford
Stanford is a tranquil Victorian village out of 1785 with a lot of charm and rural feel. It has a vast open space in the middle of the village (the Commons), used in the past as an outspan for ox wagons. The Klein River runs through Stanford to the Klein River Lagoon that finds its outlet in the Walkerbay near Hermanus. The upper region of the Klein River Lagoon is a bird sanctuary, haven to an estimated 124 species of bird. Stanford is at the beginning of the Fynbos Road, the 100km stretch from Stanford to Cape Agulhas, meandering through a landscape with the highest density of endemic and localised plant-species in the world. Stanford has a few good restaurants as well, such as Paprika and Havencrofts.

Napier
Napier is a town with an unspoilt appearance and the facade of the buildings on the main road has surprisingly an almost city-like appearance. Napier was built in 1838 as a result of a dispute about the location of the church in neighbouring Bredasdorp. The guys who lost the dispute, left Bredasdorp in anger and founded Napier. The church in Napier, seriously oversized for a small town like this, is still a late echo of this bull fight. The road to Napier takes you through an empty and surrealistic landscape of never ending fields of wheat and barley, where the rare and stately Blue Crane, the national bird of South Africa, congregate in flocks.

Gansbaai ( Gans Bay )
Gans Bay, the town closest to farm 215 has a split personality. It is still in all aspects (including the occasional smell) a fishing village, but tourism has discovered this best land-based whale watching spot in the world which doubles as the world's Mecca for shark diving. Gans Bay is now booming and risks an uncontrolled expansion in its eagerness to map itself for international tourism, that could easily spoil the unpretentious character of Gans Bay. Luckily vast amounts of the coastal plains and adjacent lands are either Nature Reserves controlled by Cape Nature Conservation or private Nature reserves and Gans Bay will therefore be spared the fate of Hermanus.

Baardskeerdersbos
Baardskeerdersbos is a small village in the middle of nowhere and almost borders the land of farm 215, see the page of Baardskeerdersbos on this website.
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