Plettenberg Bay

Plettenberg Bay is where the Garden Route goes on holiday - a wide bay backed by the Tsitsikamma mountains, with several long sandy beaches, warm-ish Indian Ocean water and a town that fills to bursting in December and empties again. Robberg, the rocky peninsula closing the bay to the south-west, is a nature reserve with a circuit walk of about nine kilometres out along the spine and back along the shore, past a Cape fur seal colony and a cave used by people at intervals over roughly a hundred thousand years; it is the single best thing to do here. Southern right and humpback whales use the bay between about July and November and are often visible from the beach. Two lagoons, the Keurbooms and the Bitou, come into the bay at the eastern end, and boat trips run up the Keurbooms into forested gorge.

History

Nelson Bay Cave and Matjies River Cave nearby were lived in for over 100,000 years. Portuguese explorers charted the bay in the 15th and 16th centuries, about 100 Portuguese sailors were marooned here for 9 months after the São Gonçalo sank in June 1630, a stinkwood beacon was set up on Beacon Island in 1771, and Governor Joachim van Plettenberg gave the town its name in 1779 (Wikipedia, Plettenberg Bay).

What's there

• Robberg peninsula - a nine-kilometre circuit past a seal colony and an ancient cave.
• Long beaches - several kilometres of sand around a wide sheltered bay.
• Whales in season - southern rights and humpbacks, often visible from shore.
• The lagoons - the Keurbooms river reaching the sea through forested gorge.

When to go

December to April for beaches; July to November for whales. Two to three days.

Things to know

December and January are extremely busy and expensive - accommodation triples. Robberg is exposed with no shade or water and the full circuit is harder than it looks. The bay is windy in the afternoons. Out of season much of the town closes.

Nearby

Knysna is west; the Tsitsikamma forest and Storms River are east.

Key facts