Plettenberg Bay, nicknamed Plett, is a town in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. It was originally named Bahia Formosa (beautiful bay) by early Portuguese explorers and lies on South Africa’s Garden Route 210 km from Port Elizabeth and about 600 km from Cape Town.
Overview
Plettenberg Bay is a seasonal resort town with massive fluctuations in population during the holidays when people travel from all over South Africa and the world to enjoy Plett’s beautiful beaches, mild weather and festive atmosphere. Out of season Plett has a steady stream of International tourists, mostly German, Belgian and British, who come to see the dolphins, calving whales and various other things Plett has to offer.
Plett is a beautiful town. Nestled around the estuaries of three rivers emptying into the bay, with views from the hillsides on which most of the houses are built. Plett is also an unusually non-windy town due to the sheltered nature of the bay.
Plett has a small town sense of community which makes the populace friendly and engaging. If you are new in town, take a walk through the Main Street, pop in at the shops, enjoy the sunset from one of the many restaurants (most with views). You will discover that one of Plett’s most valued charms is the indescribably romantic atmosphere that alter the perception of all who inhabit it.
History
Mesolithic
Caves in Nelson’s Bay Cave and Matjies River Cave at nearby Keurboomstrand indicate they were inhabited for over 100 000 years by Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) man and then later by ancestors of the Khoisan, who were possibly the same people who traded with the Portuguese survivors of the San Gonzales shipwreck. Their tools, ornaments and food debris can be viewed in these caves, which are still being excavated.
Modern
Long before Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape, Portuguese explorers charted the bay in the 15th and 16th centuries, the first being Bartholomew Dias in 1487. Ninety years later Manuel da Perestrello aptly called it Bahia Formosa or the Beautiful Bay. The first European inhabitants were 100 Portuguese sailors marooned here for 9 months when the San Gonzales sank in the bay in 1630. The survivors built two small boats which they used to link with a passing vessel. A stone that they left behind on Beacon Island, known as the Van Plettenberg Stone, is now in the Cape Town museum. In 1763, the first European settlers in the Bay were stock farmers, hunters and frontiersmen from the Western Cape.
A stinkwood navigational beacon was first erected on Beacon Island in 1771. The original was a square block of stinkwood, inscribed with the latitude and longitude of Plettenberg Bay and erected to enable mariners to check their location. It was replaced by a stone one by Captain Sewell in 1881.
A barracks for the Dutch East India Company in 1776. The Governor of the Cape, Baron Joachim van Plettenberg, renamed the town Plettenberg Bay in 1779. In 1869 it was bought by St Peters Church and used as a rectory for the next 70 years. Today it is presently privately owned.
In 1787/88 by Johann Jerling and the Dutch East India Company, erected a Timber Shed; the remains can still be seen and are preserved as a National Monument.
A whaling station was built on Beacon Island in 1910, but was closed down in 1916. Parts of the iron slipway are still visible today.
A hotel called The Beacon Isle Southern Sun Hotel now stands where the whaling station used to.
Ecology
Plettenberg Bay hosts one of the largest seagull breading colonies along the South African coast at the mouth of the Keurboom’s River, named after the indigenous keurboom tree.
Local vegetation varies from Cape Fynbos to indigenous forest further inland.
Whales are a common site in the bay during their breeding season, while dolphins are frequently seen in the surf.
A delicate flower-shaped sea shell called a pansy shell is endemic to this part of the coast, and is used as the symbol representing the town. Looking for these shells on the beach is a popular activity amongst visitors and locals alike.
Robberg Peninsula is maintained as a nature reserve, allowing visitors to see many of the area’s local plants and animals.
Climate and geography
Plettenberg Bay is typified by an extremely mild maritime temperate climate with very few rainfall or temperature extremes. It is located within the Knysna Afromontane Forest biome, containing temperate gallery forest, supported by the mild temperatures and high, even distributed rainfall. Here follows the records for the closest climate station just to the east in the Tsitsikamma:
- Maximum/minimum temperatures: January: 23°C/17°C; July: 17°C/10°C; rainfall: 945mm per annum.
The bay is defined on the southern end by Cape Seal at the terminus of the Robberg (Afrikaans for Seal Mountain) Peninsula, separating the bay from the open Indian Ocean. It is one of the southern cape coast’s typical “J-shaped” bays, which is formed by wave action eroding the shales of the Bokkeveld Group between the weather-resistant headlands composed of the Table Mountain Group, both of the Cape Supergroup geological sequence of rocks. To the north, the Tsitsikamma and Langkloof Mountains keeps the moisture on the southern slopes of the mountains and prevent the temperature extremes of the interior reaching the bay.
The town experienced a rare snow fall on the 20th and 21st of May 2007 due to an unusual cold front.
Source: Wikipedia – Plettenberg Bay
Image Source: brinkimages.com
