Hermanus & Good Bye

Our last stop is Hermanus, an hour and a half east of Cape Town. Famous for whale-watching, Hermanus is bursting with good restaurants. We savour one last time the South African cuisine, which is limited for vegans but almost always excellent and varied. Our hostel, Hermanus Backpackers, is the purest luxury boutique hotel with a pool, garden, olive trees and a huge kitchen/lounge – at hostel prices.

On the second day in Hermanus, the wind is good for the last time. Unfortunately, the spot on the lagoon behind Grotto Beach, which is quite well frequented by sharks, only works when the wind is blowing from the east (bumpy, coming over land) or west to south-west (clean). If the main wind direction is southeast, nothing works.

The lagoon is shallow everywhere. There are no rocks, just some slimy seaweed. The panorama, with the high mountains, is gigantic on the lagoon, which is only separated from the sea by a bank of dunes. We set up at half past eight. First Verena learns with 7m². After a few good superwomans, the wind picks up. We switch to 5m². A few more water starts. Then the wind really picks up one last time.

The southern shallow water end of the lagoon is suddenly full of very capable kiters. The girls are doing loops over 7 metres with their 9m² kites – with 7m² I can’t complain about a lack of steam. The water is splashing, the sun is blazing and the sand is flying at over 25 knots. My bar likes this spot so much that it decides to stay.

Surprisingly, there are quite a few shallow water spots within a two-hour drive of Cape Town. Some are listed at www.kitespotters.co.za, others can be found via Google Maps. The lagoon behind Grotto Beach was one of them. But a few kilometres further on in Fisherhaven you can also learn on a wide lagoon in shallow water – or on Zandflei Lake behind Muizenberg.

Our month in South Africa was wonderful. We could have spared ourselves very little of the 4,200 kilometres travelled by car in 20 days. Especially around George and Knysna, South Africa is wonderfully green, quite different from the rest of the otherwise dry coast in the south.