South Africa: Gansbaai – Platbos Forest Cabins

It was time to say goodbye to Cape Town and head east along the cape to the small coastal town of Gansbaai, which was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive. Our route followed the coast, passing south of the most famous wine regions of South Africa, centred around the town of Stellenbosch. There are numerous vineyards in this area, several of which are open to visitors. We had been enjoying the South African wines during our stay, but we didn’t have any interest in a vineyard tour, but we thought we’d do a short detour to see what the town of Stellenbosch was like.

The day had started as a beautiful one, but as we travelled east down the Cape, the clouds rolled in, and the sun disappear. By the time we reached the seaside town of Hermanus the sun was gone, and rain was in the air. As we rolled through Hermanus nothing really appealed about the town (I am not sure we gave it a fair shot to be honest), but just as we left the town there was a beach that looked nice, even in the grey weather. Hermanus is famous as a place where whales, particularly southern right whales pass through this time of year – but with a grey-coloured sea and sky with poor visibility our hopes were not high of seeing a whale – and sadly, that proved to be the case. But this did not stop us from taking a walk along the beach, which has some lovely sand dunes. We stopped briefly to watch a couple of young boys skimming across the waves on boards before jumping back in the car and continuing on to Gansbaai.

I had booked us to stay in the Platbos Forest Cabins about 15 minutes away from the town of Gansbaai in the Platbos Forest. Luckily, the combination of GPS and Google Maps got us to the entrance of the forest and from there we followed the signs which led us to a dirt road for a couple of kilometres. Now the road was very bumpy with large rocks, and we were travelling in a tiny hatchback car with low clearance. Even when I was driving slowly it was hard not to bottom the car out. Finally, we reached an open field where we had to pick up our car and collect the wood for our fire and the water heater for the shower. A trail led us through the forest about 100m to where our cabin was. It was in a small opening with a fire pit and a separate bathroom. To call this a cabin was misleading as all the walls were canvas, which you could roll up so the space was completely open to the elements. The weather didn’t really suit that so we just opened one panel. The ‘cabins’ are totally off-grid, so we had solar-powered lights, a gas stove for cooking and wood burning stove for heat. All this said the ‘cabin’ was cosy and with some lovely wooden furniture and was very spacious.