The Quirky West Coast - A Two-Day Road Trip Itinerary from Cape Town
As someone who likes all things quirky, unusual and offbeat, I have wanted to explore the West Coast for quite some time. Recently, I was given a writing assignment that required me to travel two hours up the coast from Cape Town, so I decided to take the opportunity to visit all the places I had wanted to go en route and turn it into an overnight road trip — I also took my mom, as one does. (She was visiting from Joburg at the time.)
If you like quirky small towns, iconic South African drag queens, unusual museums, satirical sculpture gardens, rubber ducks, historical evidence of strange creatures, a tangible experience of strange living creatures, quaint fishing villages and fairies, you’re going to want to read this. Or, you know, if you just want to know where to stop on a West Coast road trip.
Here is the ultimate two-day West Coast road trip itinerary:
First Stop: Evita se Perron – Darling
Evita se Perron is the ultimate shrine to South Africa's most famous fictional political figure and anti-Apartheid activist, Evita Bezuidenhout, created by Pieter-Dirk Uys. This converted railway station in the random small town of Darling, surrounded by a pink wagon wheel fence, is a must-visit.
If you can see a show at this satirical theatre and museum, do. If you can’t, at least stop there for a cup of tea or coffee and a rusk or a koeksister. The venue covered in Evita Bezuidenhout photographs and tribute art is so charmingly mesmerising that it’ll have you staring at the walls for hours.
Apart from unusual gallery/theatre space, there’s also something of a museum (or “Nauseam”), a satirical sculpture garden (“Boerassic Park”), a gift shop and the Darling Sweet toffee shop.
If you are a foreign visitor to South Africa, don’t be put off. You might not get the jokes but in wanting to get the jokes, you’ll give yourself quite the education on South African history.
For more, read this:
Next Up: The Pixie and Fairy Village – Jacobsbaai
From Darling, another hour’s drive will take you to Jacobsbaai (or "Jacob’s Bay", as it says on my GPS). It may look like a sleepy seaside village but it is home to The Pixie and Fairy Village. This attraction is definitely one of South Africa’s most underrated (ranking alongside — yes, I’m always harping on about this — The Big Pineapple in Bathurst).
While the website and the Facebook page describe the Pixie and Fairy Village as “world-class”, the images don’t really do it justice. But here you will find a 600-square-metre garden that took more than three years to build, filled with pixies, fairies, gnomes, castles, water features and whimsy!
It's pure magic, slightly unhinged but definitely one of South Africa’s best-kept secrets. You kind of need to see it to believe it, but I did my best to describe it in this post: (It also includes a video.)
Our Overnight Stop: Paternoster
Jacob’s Bay is just 23 minutes from Paternoster. This may be the most picturesque fishing village in the country. It’s often compared to Mykonos in Greece because of the white buildings with hints of blue, but it’s not like Mykonos. I mean, I haven’t actually been there yet, but Paternoster has its own character ...and no windmills.
It is made up almost entirely of whitewashed cottages, usually with colourful little fishing boats parked outside. Some of these are the humble homes of actual fishermen, while others are luxury boutique hotels and Airbnbs, but all stick to the assigned colour scheme. There are a number of quirky shops and restaurants here and I would love to have explored them all, but my mother and I travelled here on a Monday and many of them were closed.
Instead, we strolled from our Airbnb, through the town, along the beach, stopping to pose with a boat (obviously - It’s what you do in Paternoster!), and then we found our way to the Paternoster Lodge Restaurant for a meal with a view. Having anything other than seafood here just feels wrong. And you know it’s going to be freshly caught and delicious. The meal may have filled me up but my entire experience of Paternoster felt like nothing more than a starter. I need to return!
Then we wandered back to our accommodation as the sun set. It was quite romantic, really ...or at least it would have been had I not been there with my mom.
Day 2: The West Coast Fossil Park
From Paternoster, we drove 30 minutes south to the West Coast Fossil Park.
I knew about the West Coast National Park, but I didn’t know that the West Coast Fossil Park existed. Pulling off the R45, it didn’t look like much, but this was another surprising adventure. In the middle of seemingly nowhere is a world-class museum and visitors’ centre as well as a fossil dig site. It's one of the few places in the world where you can see actual fossils in the ground where they were discovered ...and take a selfie with them!
 |
| #fossilselfie |
It turns out that five million years ago, the dry West Coast was a tropical paradise filled with lots of strange now-extinct creatures like sabre-tooth cats, short-necked long-horn giraffes and African bears. Oh my! There were also wolverines, giant pigs and even mammoths (but not the woolly kind).
Here, you can tour the dig site where some of their fossils lie exposed in the ground where they were discovered. For a separate fee, you can tour the museum that tells the story of this land and displays the remains of some of the 300 species of animals that they discovered here.
There are also kids' activities, walking and mountain bike trails and other facilities. You can find all the details in the article I wrote for CapeTownMagazine.com.
Also, if I haven’t already given you enough reasons to visit, the huge images of what this part of the Western Cape once looked like make great backdrops for creative pictures:
Last Stop: West Coast Padstal
No Western Cape road trip is complete without a stop at a padstal (a farm stall for my international readers). And the West Coast Padstal is a padstal worth pulling over for! Located on the R27, 30 minutes south of the West Coast Fossil Park, this place has everything you could want in a padstal.
Along with the typical farm stall biltong, jams, rusks, nuts and homemade goodies, as well as a restaurant and decent toilets, you will also find:
- A cannabis shop
- Pony rides
- Oversized lion statues
 |
| Now that's worth a pit stop! |
- A plant nursery
- An aviary
- A gin bar
- And alpacas!
 |
| Alpacas! |
Why would you want to stop anywhere else?
The Journey Back
Then with full hearts and tummies, loads of incredible memories, some compromising pictures of my mother and a car bonnet covered in fairy poop, it became time to complete the journey back to Cape Town. The last stretch can theoretically be done in an hour, but Cape Town traffic is becoming as unpredictable as our weather.
The West Coast is a great place to go in search of the fascinating, the unusual, the charmingly quirky and the “How did I not know that this was here?” If you know of any offbeat attractions that I missed, please let me know in the comments below?
And now, I will leave you with this highlight from my mom’s trip:
Our West Coast Itinerary Route:
Here is a map of the Western Cape road trip we did with all the attractions we visited:
Conveniently, you can also just click on this link and Google Maps will be your navigator.
How fun! The fossil park and fairy/pixie village... I could easily spend hours there 🥰. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteVisiting Africa is on my bucket list and South Africa is one of the places on that wish list. This itinerary looks jam-packed with plenty to do and I love the variety that you included.
ReplyDeleteLove this! Definitely saving it for my visit to Africa!
ReplyDelete