Today's hike brought me to perhaps the most sought after exclusive tourist holiday resort beach on the entire south coast of Africa.
It's mid summer here in the little known hidden treasure of a location, called the Garden Route, which stretches about 100km along the central southern shoreline of the continent.
Since school holidays are recently over, the majority of local tourists have returned to their homes in the big cities. Only the wealthiest urban elite (and those with dollars or euro) can afford to come spend a holiday in this exclusive magical nature Hotspot.
However, the second wave of tourists, this time international, will arrive in coming days to escape their European winter chill and bask here on these southern shores.
The entire Garden Route coastline is a real Goldilocks zone, where the climate is just right. Not too hot and not too cold all year through, it provides a perfect holiday space for nature lovers, whether families or lone explorers.
Today my hike took me to one of the most beautiful of all the beaches in the region, called Robberg beach, in the town known as Plettenberg Bay. It's just after sunrise on an early summer's morning and the beach is relatively empty, certainly by international standards.
Africa is so big and here it's so sparsely populated, so the long stretch of beach has only a few locals with all this beautiful open shoreline to themselves.
The pure soft white beach sand is so attractive to me. I've not seen this kind of super fine white sand in many other beaches in the world. Certainly not in India, and even Thailand beach sand is not as soft and white.
Also it's so clean with hardly any litter. This time I did, however, find one plastic water bottle with some Asian writing. On rare occasions they wash up, probably from Asian tankers or fishing vessels offshore, sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, an alternative route instead of the Suez Canal between east and west.
Actually, the water bottle was not the only thing to wash ashore from the passing ships beyond the horizon. I also saw today the biggest object I've ever seen to wash up on these beaches. It's almost the size of a small car, and appears to be a metal bouy, covered in hard plastic.
I presume it fell off a tanker and was washed ashore by the swell. It has been on this beach for a few days now and looks too heavy to move without a truck or some big construction vehicle to move it. I wonder if the local municipality will eventually get a vehicle to move this thing?
The ocean trade route around the south coast of Africa has really increased its traffic recently, after all the trouble for tankers using the usual trade routes up north. So more passing ships means more strange litter washing up, I guess.
Still the beach looks epic and pure, clean and healthy. The water color is a shade of aquamarine, which is a light green mixed with turquoise. It's so really inviting. And the sea is amazingly warm now. Not as warm as Thailand admittedly, but warm enough to want to swim all day.
There are even waves for those who enjoy surfing, albeit small waves. There are better surf beaches further along the coast, but for beauty, convenience, accessibility and cleanliness, this beach is a winner.
With the main national highway running right through the local town just a few hundred meters from the beach itself, it's the easiest place to find, while also being very safe, (crucial in crime-infested South Africa) and very up-market, by local standards. So it's most appealing for international travelers.
I love it here so much. In fact I guarantee that you will love it so much, that you might feel inspired to stay. At least be sure to visit once in your lifetime to compare this beach with others you've encountered on your travels. This Garden Route coastline may end up being in your top ten list of favorite beaches.
It certainly feels like paradise to me.
Photos my own. Uploaded from my mobile device and published onto the Hive blockchain for all treasure hunters and travelers of our beautiful planet.
Notice the moon in this image?
[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin -34.09588 lat 23.37404 long Robberg beach d3scr))