West Coast. Cederberg to sea, by Vanessa Cowling and Karena du Plessis

West Coast. Cederberg to sea, by Vanessa Cowling and Karena du Plessis. ISBN 9781770071889 / ISBN 978-1-77007-188-9

West Coast. Cederberg to sea, by Vanessa Cowling and Karena du Plessis. ISBN 9781770071889 / ISBN 978-1-77007-188-9

Both Vanessa Cowling and Karena du Plessis have an uncanny ability to get people from all walks of life to open up about their families, their lives, expectations and disappointments, their favourite recipes and places. All is to be found in their book West Coast: Cederberg to sea.

Vanessa Cowling  Karena du Plessis  

There’s plenty of time to think on the way up the West Coast when you’re stuck behind an enormous truck with the slogan Moving Grain is our Game emblazoned across its rear end. But then, there’s plenty of time to think on the West Coast generally. It’s that kind of place. There’s all the space you might need with huge expanses of sky, stunning sunsets and plenty of room to breathe. Perfect! And - depending on your mood and inclination - you can access the West Coast via two very different routes that I’ve attempted to capture in this book. If it’s the sand, sea and wheeling seabirds you’re after, then you can take the coast road - the R27 - which affords you a very particular sense of the area as you head up past Yzerfontein, the West Coast National Park and on to towns such as Langebaan and Velddrif. Be sure to roll down your car window when you get near the wide windswept beaches. The smell of the ocean is intoxicating. But, if it’s soft rolling hills and vistas of sheep, vineyards and windmills your heart craves, then take the N7 inland and you’ll drive through quaint country towns with their own unique charms. One day, somewhere in between Lambert’s Bay, Graafwater and Piketberg, I waved at three other bakkies as they whizzed by in the other direction. After about an hour and a half of solitary driving I began to worry. Was I on the right road? Where were all the other people? And then I reminded myself that this was the West Coast and absolutely as it should be - no crowds, no great rush and plenty to look at. So, I stopped panicking and settled down to try to find a house that was made by earlier farmers out of old whale bones that had washed up on the shore. I couldn’t find the house, but it didn’t really seem to matter. The sun was out, the flowers on the side of the road were a brilliant orange and the open road lay before me. The West Coast also seems to be a good place to find yourself or rediscover what’s really important to you. There’s a pared-down sparseness to the landscape, which demands a degree of barefaced honesty that you can ignore in other areas that might be more overtly beautiful, or more full of distraction. It’s these qualities that draw people up the coast - and exactly what has kept families farming there for countless generations. But for all its apparent barrenness, the West Coast is an area unbelievably rich in history and natural resources. The rock art in the Cederberg, the fossils at the West Coast Fossil Park, the harvest from the sea, and the amazing flowers that make over the landscape each spring are just the beginnings of what you’ll find up here if you take the trouble to look. And then, of course, there are the people. Living in a city it’s easy to forget your shared humanity in the daily grind. You fight for parking, jostle in supermarket queues and sit for hours in traffic that might take you to a job you don’t love. Up the West Coast it’s different. Once you’re out of Cape Town’s ever-spreading sprawl and have Table Mountain firmly behind you, things begin to change. For starters everybody on the West Coast seems to have a bynaam or nickname, usually infused with humour. […]

This is an excerpt from the book: West Coast. Cederberg to sea, by Vanessa Cowling and Karena du Plessis.

Title: West Coast. Cederberg to sea
Author: Vanessa Cowling; Karena du Plessis
Struik Publishers
Cape Town, South Africa 2006
ISBN 9781770071889 / ISBN 978-1-77007-188-9
Hardcover, 24x28 cm, 208 pages, throughout colour photos

Cowling, Vanessa und du Plessis, Karena im Namibiana-Buchangebot

West Coast. Cederberg to sea

West Coast. Cederberg to sea

West Coast: cederberg to the sea is a quite beautiful, quirkily-written, innovatively-designed, super-glossy coffee table book.

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