We are now in Knysna, a seaside town of about 50,000 along the Garden Route. We’re here for several reasons. One is the Featherbed Preserve which we’ll hike through this morning. It is a wonderful place with a rich variety of plant life representative of the coastal Garden Route community. And, since we’re on the coast, there are spectacular views of the ocean and bay crashing into the beach and cliffs. We’ll see much of that after the next two posts.
Also in Knysna is an elephant park. This is a place where at risk elephants are helped, some of whom get returned to the wild. More on this with that post.
But first let’s see where we are.
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| Southern Coast of South Africa |
This is the southern coast of South Africa. Most of the water you see here is the Indian Ocean although along the west edge of the map it becomes the Atlantic Ocean. Just where it does that is a matter of some dispute as we’ll see when we visit the Cape of Good Hope near Cape Town. But that’s several days away.
For scale purposes we are nearly 500 kilometers east of Cape Town and about 260 kilometers west of Port Elizabeth (where we flew to yesterday). Oh, and despite what the above map appears to show, Knysna is not on Pletterberg Bay. The bay is about 30 kilometers to the east of Knysna. And, while we’re getting oriented, you pronounce Knysna with a silent K. The name means “ferns” in the native Khoikhoi language.
So let’s talk about the people of Knysna. The population of the town is about 42% black, 37% colored, .5% Indian/Asian, 18% white, and the rest make up that category known as other. That’s today. The first European settlers arrived around 1760. Prior to that time the Khoikhoi had lived here since at least the 5th century. Khoikhoi or Khoi means “people people” or “real people” in their language. They were a largely pastoral agriculture people with large herds of cattle. The Dutch called them Hottentots, based on the sound of their language, but you should not use that term today as it is considered derogatory.
Knysna itself sits on a large lagoon, known not surprisingly as the Knysna Lagoon, with two large islands in it. There is a narrow opening from the lagoon out to the eastern part of Buffels Bay and the Indian Ocean.
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| Knysna Lagoon |
At the head is the Featherbed Nature Reserve which we'll visit in a bit after first crossing the lagoon. If you look at the top east part of the lagoon you’ll see one of the two large islands (Thesen’s Island) and north of the west end of the island is the Knysna Log Inn Hotel, where we stayed.
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| Lobby of Knysna Log Inn Hotel |
As you can see, the hotel is aptly named. The logs are from the Yellowwood Tree and the hotel definitely has a rustic feel to it. There are several stained glass pieces, one of which you see above showing a cottage scene. And since there is logging (or at least was logging — the Yellowwood tree is the national tree of South Africa and is protected — here is a logging scene (appropriately intruded into in part by a piece of real live tree).
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| Logging Scene |
The hotel had a strange hall layout. Rather than a hallway that had straight sides, each room pushed out somewhat into the hallway, resulting in a rather zig-zag hall. I’m not sure I’ve described this appropriately but I hope this picture helps.
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| Hallway of Hotel |
The town itself has a variety of houses. Many are modest looking single family houses.
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| Modest Homes |
On the cliffs overlooking the heads of the lagoon are more expensive and extensive housing. I don’t know if these are actually single family units or multiple units.
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| Cliffside Housing |
Our visit was during the month of August and we were considerably far south of the equator. This made it wintertime. Still it felt strange, from my Northern Hemisphere perspective, to see such signs as this in Knysna.
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| Winter Break |
And before any of you ask, the water does not drain clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as opposed to counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. At least it doesn’t drain that way as a result of being in the Southern Hemisphere. Water drains in the direction it does due to a variety of factors but not significantly influenced by the hemisphere it is in. http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp
Now it’s time to cross the Lagoon, which is draining, if at all, through the opening called The Heads.
Link to Full Resolution Photos
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