September 12: Cape Agulhas and Journey’s End

After leaving De Hoop Nature Reserve, I headed south as far south as you can go on the continent of Africa to the southern tip at Cape Agulhas:

Cape Agulhas, also known as the “Cape of Needles”, is a rocky headland in thte Western Cape Province and it is the geographic southern tip of Africa and the beginning of the traditional dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. It is approximately half a degree of latitude, or 34 miles, further south than the Cape of Good Hope near Cape Town. Here, the warm Agulhas Current flows south along the east coast of Africa and retroflects back into the Indian Ocean. While retroflecting, it pinches off large ocean eddies (called Agulhas rings) that drift into the South Atlantic Ocean and take enormous amounts of heat and salt into the neighboring ocean. This mechanism constitutes one of the key elements in the global conveyor belt circulation of heat and salt.

Here’s the monument at the southern tip depicting the traditional dividing line between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Of course, the waters of the two oceans don’t literally meet at this dividing line, but rather they mix along a broad zone extending outward from this point. Nonetheless, it is a pretty significant landmark from a global perspective.

As I am sure you realize, I generally don’t take selfies, but I couldn’t help myself standing at such a geographical phenomenon:

Historically, the cape has been known to sailors as a major hazard. The sea off Cape Agulhas is notorious for winter storms and mammoth rogue waves, which can range up to 100 feet high and can sink even large ships. Over the past few hundred years it is believed that around 150 ships have sunk around Agulhas. Here’s one old wreck to support this claim:

The weather was rather raunchy at the Cape, so I opted to move on farther down the coast towards Cape Town while waiting for the weather to change, and I found a campsite right on the coast with the Green Dragon literally 20 feet from the rocky shoreline, but utterly exposed. However, the rain ceased, the wind stopped blowing, and a pair of black oystercatchers were calling from the rocks nearby – a I fitting last campsite for this epic journey.

From here, it is on to Cape Town, where I will service the Green Dragon and get it prepared for storage. I will undoubtedly have time to explore the penninsula of Table Moutain National Park and the Cape of Good Hope, and visit with the African penguins, but these are all things I reported on last year at the beginning of my journey, so I will not repeat it in this year’s blog, except I have show you at least a couple of penguin shots:

If you are new to my travel blog this year and want to hear about Cape Town and surroundings, you can find these posts on the blog way back at the bottom of the list.

So, until my return next year, it’s goodbye to all you dedicated followers that have accompanied me on this year’s journey and are still reading this blog. We saw lots of wildlife, explored some exotic places (e.g., Zanzibar), drove some off-the-beaten path roads, visited some really stunning landscapes, went on some amazing hikes, and met lots of different people. I hope you learned a few things along the way and enjoyed the wildlife, landscapes and people as much as I did. As hopefully this travel journey demonstrated, life is truly an adventure worth taking, again and again! The journey continues next year if all goes as planned….