Table of contents for West Coast, Namaqualand Travel Guide 2024 in go!

Cruising north on the N7 is easy when you have a Wimpy coffee in your cup holder and your favourite playlist on repeat. From Cape Town, you can reach Piekenierskloof Pass beyond Piketberg in two hours. This wasn't the case in the time of pack donkeys and ox-wagons – it took weeks to reach this point. In 1660, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) sent Jan Danckaert from the Cape to scout a route to Namaqualand. Khoi guides took him over a mountain range. From the top, he beheld a river valley where herds of elephants roamed. Fittingly, he called the river the Olifants, and the mountain range he'd just crossed became known as the Olifantsrivierberg. In 1864, a tollhouse was erected at the top of the pass that Danckaert…

Summer on the West Coast can be a drab affair: The wheatfields are bare and everything is dusty. The green returns in winter, when rain starts to fall, and in springtime the landscape comes alive with daisies, sporrie, vygies and dozens of other flower species. If you want to see the West Coast at its most beautiful, early spring is the best time to visit. Good planning is essential for a successful flower tour. You'll have to drive a lot to reach the flowers. It's a proper road trip, even if you're only doing a one-day route. Pack padkos, a picnic basket, your flower guide and a camera with a macro lens (your cellphone will also work). Pull over at farm stalls – many are only open in the flower…

Igrew up in Vredenburg. After church on Sundays, our family would often drive to Paternoster “to have a look around”. From Vredenburg, the R399 cuts through undulating hills for 15 km, straight to the coast. When you crest the last hill, you see the dark blue Atlantic fringed with a line of bright white houses. This little piece of paradise is Paternoster, everybody's favourite West Coast holiday town. We'd walk down to where the fishermen sold their catch on the beach and afterwards, we'd go to the Voorstrandt Restaurant for fish and chips. In spring, we'd go see the wildflowers around the Cape Columbine Lighthouse and we'd dip our toes into the freezing sea at Tietiesbaai. Before we returned to Vredenburg, we'd buy ice cream at the café and eat…

Golden light illuminates the spray coming off the waves crashing onto Sixteen Mile Beach. I'm on a rubber duck with some other tourists and the crew from Whale Expedition SA. It's just after 8 am on a perfect January morning, off the coast of Yzerfontein. Since 2011, large numbers of humpback whales have been seen off the West Coast where they come to feed between November and April. In some cases, so-called super-pods of up to 200 animals have been observed. After waking up in a guesthouse in town, I clocked in at the Whale Expedition SA base at about 6.30 am for breakfast. Other guests soon joined. Once everyone was settled in, the head guide, Jacques Buys, briefed us about the experience that lay ahead. During a slideshow, we…

Silence, stones and rare, desert-adapted flora are the main attractions of the Richtersveld. If you have a 4x4, plan a road trip through this rugged region. Start at one of the campsites on the Orange River near Vioolsdrif, then head towards the small towns of Eksteenfontein and Lekkersing before entering the |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park at Sendelingsdrift. Give yourself at least three days to explore the park before turning towards Alexander Bay for a glimpse of the final stretch of our western coastline. This photo was taken near the Kokerboomkloof campsite in the |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park (sanparks.org).…

LAMBERT'S BAY Pancakes are being fried, rolled and sold by the stack. A mince jaffle is yours if you want one. Cooler boxes are being clipped open, chairs are pulled closer, and every now and then the lights of a vehicle sweep over Malkoppan as more people arrive. Under the stretch tent on the lawn, someone is testing mood lighting for the dance later. It's a Friday evening in March and there's an intimate atmosphere at the Lambert's Bay Kuiernaweek. Ian Turner of the Muisbosskerm open-air restaurant, which is across the road, is the braai master. He's manning two grids at once. A caravan churns out slaptjips in Styrofoam containers. People arrive in a steady stream: Young ones chase after their dogs; old ones walk slowly and greet each other…

The easy joke is to say that Hondeklip Bay has gone to the dogs. You could even call it a one-seahorse town. But it remains an intriguing place, the permanent roost of artists, diamond divers and big-city runaways – with a fair dollop of rowdy romance. Hondeklip Bay is also the final resting place of a host of mariners whose vessels came to grief on its rocky shores. When the lighthouse lantern flashes through the fog (three times every 15 seconds) it's easy to imagine the ghosts of those mariners rising from the Atlantic for one last brandy-fuelled beach party. Drive into this beautifully tumbledown settlement and you'll soon see the canine connections on the signage: Dog Stone Cottage; Honnehokke Resort; Honde Hemel; Honne-Pondokkies; Woef se Moer; K9 Pottery… Every…

South Africa's West Coast is treacherous for ships to navigate – even today with modern navigational aids and storm-warning systems. I'm at the mouth of the Orange River in Alexander Bay and a cold wind cuts through my jacket. I watch an excavator on the beach as it tears through the last remaining mining buildings that are being demolished. Trucks remove the rubble. I shiver, rub my hands together and return to the warmth of my vehicle. My plan is to drive back to Cape Town along the coast and visit every lighthouse I can find. Alexander Bay doesn't have one, but if you want to say you've explored every inch of the West Coast, this is where you should start. I turn away from the sea and drive south…

COLUMN As a born Namakwalander, the cold Atlantic Ocean is synonymous with holidays, especially Christmas holidays. Port Nolloth is 145 km from Springbok and you can drive there on a tar road now, but 60 years ago, when I was a child, it was a mission to get there on dirt tracks. McDougall's Bay, just south of Port Nolloth, was our family's destination of choice for the summer holidays. My parents would load me and my brother into our old Kombi and we'd make the trek to the seaside, past all the landmarks: Okiep, Steinkopf, Klipfontein (where there used to be a hotel that served the steam locomotives that transported copper), down Anenous Pass, Xnoasies, Grasvlakte and finally to McDougall's. We'd catch crayfish near the little island opposite the campsite,…

Last light Rooibaai, Laaiplek I like using a slow shutter speed to emphasize the movement of water and clouds. The main subject here – the jetty – isn't moving, so it draws your attention. The flowing water fades into the background. I took this photo at Rooibaai, upstream from Laaiplek. The best time to use a slow shutter speed is just after sunset because there's less direct light but still plenty of colour in the sky. I stabilised my camera on a Gitzo Mountaineer Series tripod and I used a remote shutter release to prevent camera shake. I also used an ND filter. “ND”stands for “neutral density”: The filter lets less light into the lens so you can leave the shutter open for longer without the risk of overexposure. HOW?…