Asfontein and the Agulhas Coast

Baardskeerdersbos, a tiny scruffy hamlet on the dirt road to Asfontein, is not a place I would stop for a shave. Directly translated, means “beard cutters bush”.
Further on we stop to collect the key left under a rock beside the stairs up to the Black Oyster Catcher Estate.
In the field of chaff I spot a Denhams Bustard and further on, a pair of Jackal Buzzards tending their hatchlings in a dead tree.
Asfontein is an old low white washed farmhouse acquired by my parents some 35 years ago. It rises from the rough scrub and Milk Bush and slabs of orange lichen covered rocks mere metres from the crashing ocean of the Agulhas Coast. It is a place of many memories. My mother, wasted from cancer, sat by the mullioned window staring out to sea, a rug on her knees, the wind whistling over the thatched roof.
The water for the cottage comes from Die Oog, the eye, a natural spring where the underground water filtered by the mountains, tastes elvish.Read more