the secret south

A place of turquoise seas patrolled by southern rights and great whites, a coast of lichen-stained rocks and ghostly sea mist, of private nature reserves you’ve never heard of and dark, meandering rivers. There’s the fragrance of buchu wafting on the Southeaster, proteas coating the slopes and the thundering of surf. There are limestone cliffs and rock pools filled with life, where Homo sapiens carved a niche over the past 100000 years, leaving evidence in rock art, shell middens and visvywer fish traps. This is the wild and beguiling Southern Cape.

Getaway has often explored the nation’s extremity, from Hermanus to De Hoop Nature Reserve. But there’s another corner of the Deep South, between the Breede River and Mossel Bay, that gets neglected. My partner Tracey Younghusband and I slipped the city’s shackles and took two weeks in October to explore this coast. We set off from Cape Town in our sporty gold Renault Duster, cooler bags, surfboard and beach toys in the back, taking the N2 east then, after Swellendam, the R324 down to the Breede River mouth.

‘Blue chicken,’ called Tracey, pointing at the sky. (She’s not much of a twitcher and calls all birds chickens).

‘Blue crane,’