It’s another foam-filled day here on the southernmost shoreline of Africa, in a region of the Cape Province called the Garden Route. I find the foamy frontier on this furthest edge of the continent and the planet to be particularly inspiring, so please hear now my frothy description of one of the most inviting shores for any adventurous and intrepid traveler.
If you haven’t yet discovered the southernmost shores of Africa, then I recommend adding it to your travel itinerary. Any time of the year is fine as the sun shines brightly all year long. Winter has its cooler and greyer moments of course, but they are fleeting and mild. This is a traveler’s paradise to explore at leisure. Nature is more prominent than any human industrial creations of any sort along this African shoreline, so you will be immersed in the beauty of planet earth as it originally was and always has been before human intervention.
Today I managed to capture another of those rare moments when the tide is just right to create a churned up swell along with its flushing foam baths among the rocky pools. The continent and land mass of Africa comes sliding down to the shoreline at quite a steep vertical angle, meeting the ocean without much of a beach. In fact there is no beach, not in the sense of sandy shoreline upon which you can walk.
The stark environment provides one with steep rocky slope on one hand, and then sudden crashing surf on the other. In between you have nothing more than an abundance of massive rounded rocks and boulders. The climb down that steep slope is not for everyone, though if you have the legs for climbing and the head for heights, then you will be able to attain this rare shoreline seldom seen by any other human beings ever. Perhaps a handful of people ever make it to trammel this thin stretch of rocky shore in a year – mostly a few local fishermen from the village above.
With my keen adventurous spirit and long legs, I’ have been able to attain this rare liminal space and capture a few more images to share the impression of this zone with you. Is “liminal” even a word? If you can have “subliminal” then why not “liminal”. In other words it’s a fringe space, an in between zone, not quite here or there, wedged tightly between hill slope and sea, like any beach and yet unlike most beaches you may have ever seen. Generally some people seldom see any beach at all in their lives, due to residing inland. Other fortunate souls who do manage to access a shoreline on any continent will tell you of the marvel of such a space.
Having been born and raised by the seaside on these southernmost shores of Africa, I can attest to the beauty, health and vitality present at the coast, as well as the inspirational mood it generates upon the observer. The sea and shoreline have a constantly shifting mood and ambience about them, based on the weather and lighting on the day. Sometimes calm and sometimes ferocious, the sea shore is a magical place, subjectively speaking. Today I have captured it with its frothy beard on display. It looks simultaneously foreboding or ominous as well as fresh, frothy, flighty and flimsy. Sea folk might frolic in the familiar and friendly foam generated today, which looks entirely edible to me.
What a whimsical and intransigent spectacle this space becomes when the foam comes ashore. It looks like a giant is washing his or her clothing using masses of soap to froth up and lather the water. This is the ideal foam party folks, so dress up and roll up – or in this case roll down to the shoreline from the cliff up above and be sure to wear your best birthday suit for the fun filled foam affair. If you like the idea of bathing in a cauldron of champaign, then this is the space for you. The sky is the limit as well as your imagination because it really looks like a surreal spectacle from another planet today.
I can’t tell you when exactly it’s going to be a foamy experience. You will have to come and observe over time to see when the conditions are just right. It might require a high tide or a full or new moon, but on any month the conditions may well facilitate the foam-filled party experience down here on the south coast of Africa in this Garden Route region. You may have been to the beach parties in Thailand, on such epic islands as Koh Phangan or Phuket. Well here is the African equivalent with all the foam you could wish for to dance in, like no one is watching.
Generally that’s exactly how it is – no one is watching, since there are very few who can access this stretch at all. Therefore you will be one of the few with the VIP pass to enter this party zone, on your own, or with a special friend who also has the legs to qualify an entry onto this steep sloping slither of dance floor. And don’t come hungry because the sight of this bizarre foamy fantasmagoria (that word does exist) will remind you of the biggest piece of cream-topped cake you have ever seen. Or you might imagine a giant bowl of blissful brunch – do you want cream with that?
Ultimately this is one of the few prize spots on the planet that every explorer and traveler should know about and attempt to attain at least once in their lifetimes. If you can catch the foam fields on display at just the right time of the cycle, then all the better, so get yourself down here to the furthest southern shores of Africa and make your way to the Garden Route where these shores will inspire you to fly free like a fluttering foam bubble in the sun, here today and gone tomorrow. Of course, if you really like it then you can stay. Many already have, all along this Garden Route coastline, “far from the madding crowd” as one famous novelist once wrote. Your foam bath awaits you.
(photos my own)