Cape Infanta Weekend

Last weekend was a 4-day long weekend in South Africa. Thursday May 1st was always going to be a public holiday (Workers' Day), but then the unions complained that they were being crooked out of a public holiday when Good Friday fell on March 21st which was Human Rights Day. As a result the government declared May 2nd as a "make-up" public holiday and we took advantage of this to join Tony & Kirsten Elvin-Jensen for a long weekend at their house in Cape Infanta.

Infanta is a stunning little seaside village situated at the mouth of the Breede River where it empties into San Sebastian Bay. It is a 300km drive from Noordhoek, the last 80 of which is on a gravel road filled with sharp rocks that can shred a tire if you venture too close to the shoulder and catch a piece of shale the wrong way.
You know you are in a pretty peaceful part of the world when all the locals show up to watch you change a spare tire.

Thursday morning I joined Tony and Brendan for some Grunter fishing down at the river. Fishing for Grunter starts out with pumping prawns out of the mud to use for bait. This exercise turned out to be a bit of a challenge for a rank novice and after 30 minutes or so I had only a couple of wriggly little prawns and a face full of mud to show for my efforts. Thankfully Tony shared some of his prawns with me and we commenced the hunt.

With a little beginners luck and a lot of expert coaching on my side, I managed to catch a legal sized Grunter with my first cast. He put up a good fight considering that he only weighed a kilo or so. I must say that I was pretty proud of myself after landing him, even though we decided to release him and go for bigger ones for dinner. Tony ended up catching a couple of big ones and I caught and released a couple more little ones. However the real highlight of the morning was when we met up with the wives and kids and Tony hooked a little Steenbras and let Luca reel him in. It was the first fish that Luca has ever caught and the look on his face was priceless.

That night when we cooked up the Grunters everyone was in for a treat as it has to be one of the tastiest fish around.

On Friday Anree, Kirsten and I took Luca and Carl down to the river to swim and play on the beach, while Tony, Jean and Jacques paddled up the river.














After we'd had our fill of the beach, we met up with Kim, Monique and their kids and drove about 25km up the river to meet up with Tony, Jean and Jacques at the Bush Pub. The Bush Pub is literally a pub in the bush on the side of the river. You need a 4x4 to get into the place, but once you are there it is amazing.

At the bottom of a steep narrow path leading down to the river are a number of tables and benches, each set under its own little shade cloth, surrounded by fynbos bushes so as to be pretty much secluded from the other tables and with a stunning view of the river. We chose one next to a sort of playground they had set up to give the kids something to do while the girls drank Pimms and I had a couple of Windhoek lagers. By the time the boys paddled up to the dock, we were feeling chilled out.

















Over the course of the weekend Luca developed a crush on Keah, a little blonde 4 year old who seemed to have a similar effect on most of the little boys. In addition to landing his first fish, he had his first crush in Infanta.



Saturday Tony, Jean, Anree and I went for a walk down to the point and left the kids with Jacques, Kim, Monique and Kirsten.




After the walk, we all settled in for our mandatory afternoon nap and then set out for a 4x4 adventure to take the kids down to the point where we had walked earlier that day. On the way we stopped off at the local Infanta shop, which is essentially just a big steel shed on a local farm that is kitted out with all the essentials one might need - from plumbing fittings to fishing gear to groceries ... you name it. The highlight of the 4x4 trip for Luca and Carl was definitely the bag of cheesies that we picked up there.


Once we got back, it was time to get the kids into the bath and in bed so we could savour our last night of sitting around the fire and braaing choppies.


The next morning we packed up the kids and the car, said our good-byes and headed back to Noordhoek.