For years during the reign of the old Nat government, the De Hoop area in the southern Cape was a vast, unknown, and off-limits place – our equivalent of America’s mysterious Area 51 in the Nevada Desert.
Tens of kilometres from any settlement, the 36 000 hectare reserve became part of a secretive missile testing range. This was the place, so the reports went, from where a two-stage Jericho inter-continental ballistic missile (borrowed from the Israelis) was used to launch something 1 500km out into the South Atlantic… something which later lit up the skies with a flash picked up by US spy satellites. To this day, many military experts are convinced this was a test of a South African nuclear warhead.
As you turn off the main gravel road between Bredasdorp and Malgas, you can see why this remote area was chosen.
You quickly leave behind the rich fertile “renosterveld” (now turned to crop fields) and head into the dune barrier where fynbos is virtually all that survives in the poor soil. The rocky and rough road – heading straight for the sea – quickly leaves traces of civilisation behind as it rises and falls through waves of fynbos.
This is a place where you experience that difficult-to-find feeling of space, unspoilt beauty and freedom from human overcrowding.
Even so, as we walk later down through the dunes towards the sea, accompanied by field guide Delfrenzo Laing, the pure, clean beauty of De Hoop still bursts on the senses. As we crest a dune, we are silenced by the multicoloured hue of the ocean below us – ranging from turquoise to deep, royal blues – and the sight of a thatch-roofed Cape Dutch-style cottage afloat in a sea of fynbos. It literally stops you in your tracks as you reach for your camera.
And, while the camera is out, Laing points out into the bay. A puff of spray, then a lazy, huge black fin appears as the southern right whale slowly barrel rolls, exposing its black and white markings. Then there is another flash and we see the distinctive black flukes of the whale’s tail.
We spend a few hours along the seashore, watching the whales and listening as Laing describes the critical importance of the De Hoop Marine Protection Area (MPA), which stretches out 5km from the coast and in which all manner of fishing is banned.Laing, who works for the De Hoop Collection – which runs the accommodation side of the reserve and arranges guided tours – is one of the first South Africans to be trained as a marine guide under the auspices of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF). He is passionate about protecting our country’s marine heritage, something which has, in the past, not enjoyed the priority it should.
The fact that De Hoop is a protected area does discourage poaching, says Laing, although it still does happen. But, he reckons, the marine life and its diversity at De Hoop are probably unmatched anywhere along our coast. An estimated 250 species of fish find sanctuary in the MPA and, in addition to the southern right whales (which use the bay as a nursery between May and December), there are six other types of whales which have been seen in the area. Dolphins and seals are also plentiful.
Laing is proud because if you want to talk about crowding at De Hoop, then it will be in the numbers of whales… forget Hermanus, he says, this place is Whale Central…
The reserve has 86 mammal species, including bontebok and Cape mountain zebra (both rare species), eland, grey rhebuck, baboon, yellow mongoose, caracal and, according to Cape Nature, “the occasional leopard”.