Exotic coastal rock formations at the southernmost tip of Africa

Cape Aughulas is the official southernmost tip of the entire African continent. And just a few kilometers to the east along the same coast, is the small village of Arniston. I managed to do a little tour of the beaches and rocky shoreline and encountered some truly inspiring geological features which I want to share with you today.

Close to the southernmost tip of Africa

As a traveling digital nomad, I have the privilege of visiting all sorts of places on the truly beautiful southern African shoreline. Today’s encounter with the geology of Africa’s southern tip was fascinating and picturesque.

Sandstone cliffs and pebbles being eroded by the sea

The rock that makes up Africa’s southern tip appears to be sandstone in this little fishing village of Arniston. It weathers easily under the constant bombardment by wind and water, as the waves crash against it. Thus the shapes and rock formations are like a mass of abstract art, or some modern sculpture by an inspired artist.

Sunrise on the southern shore of Africa

Of course Nature is the artist here today, and the planet is her canvas. This section of the art piece that I call home for now, is a remote and desolate one, seen by hardly a handful of people on the globe. It’s great to know there are still remote places on the planet where you can find some peace and quiet. Those that have access to such places are quite lucky, in my opinion. Living in a busy and crowded city would be challenging for me, to say the least, so I keep to the quieter regions, like the beaches of southern Africa.

Pretty views but dangerous for swimming

This village of Arniston on the Cape south coast of Africa is a deserted fishing village with empty holiday houses mostly. It’s originally known in the Afrikaans dialect as Waenhuiskrans. The dialect is a derivative of Dutch, from the original settlers. If I spoke Afrikaans to a Dutch speaking person, they would be able to understand me, even if I couldn’t fully understand them.

Waenhuiskrans - the original name of this village in the Afrikaans vernacular

South Africa is filled with Afrikaans speakers, being one of the original Dutch colonies before the British took it from them during the hey day when Britannia ruled the waves. The Cape was a crucial point in the trading routes to the east, as the ships rounded the south coast of Africa. As a result most Cape locals have Dutch ancestry, perhaps mixed with British, or mixed with the indigenous African Bantu gene pool.

Kissing faces in the rock features

Regardless of that, the rocky features of the African shoreline are much the same as they were hundreds of years ago when the Dutch first sailed past these shores in the seventeenth century. The Portuguese passed by before them of course, but never settled.

Curious geological formations at the shoreline...

...with waves crashing over them

Anyway, back to the geology. These sandstone cliffs along the shoreline are so soft in places that the sea is eroding them and eating away at the coast. Signs have been erected to warn visitors of the collapsing sandstone cliffs, lest someone go too close and take a tumble as the floor crumbles underneath them.

Sign alerting us to the collapsing sandstone cliffs

Clear erosion visible, with temporary fences to keep people out of danger

I haven’t seen this type of rock feature and erosion quite as much on the other beaches I’ve visited along the coast, so it makes for a curious scene. The beaches here are not great for swimming, compared to others, and fishing is probably the main pastime in this holiday village. I saw lots of the local kelp washed up. This is prolific in the Cape peninsula all around the city of Cape Town, about 90 minutes drive to the west.

Radically sculpted sandstone
This kelp is more prominent in the Atlantic ocean which is much colder and which hugs the west coast of South Africa, north of Cape Town. So it’s curious to find it here also on the south coast of the continent. I presume the waters of the Atlantic are mixing here with the waters of the Indian ocean, and so remain cold enough to host this type of kelp. Once you travel a bit further east, the kelp disappears all together from the shoreline. The ocean temperature becomes too warn for them.

Kelp indigenous to the Atlantic ocean slightly further west, still washes up here as the two oceans merge

I was born and raised in Cape Town on these general shores, and have lived on the Cape coast my entire life, over 50 years now, and have become an admirer of the rocks, sea and surf as a result. I feel most at home beside the sea and although perhaps empty of people and sometimes rather desolate, this landscape (or seascape) really appeals to me, with its contrasting calm and stormy faces, depending on the day. Curiously I never took to fishing, surfing, or boating, other than canoeing on the rivers, so I remain a land lubber happy to admire the beauty of nature on this vast and extended coastline.

Spray as the waves crash up against the continental shelf

No beach or shoreline is the same, if you look closely and long enough, despite it appearing generically similar from a distance. But once you get to observe the details, each beach or stretch of shoreline provides a unique set of elements and ingredients to form a distinct coastal feature for me to admire and capture to share with you.

Beautiful artistic visuals of the sea and rock

I had this entire shoreline to myself when photographing the scene at sunrise in this village of Arniston, because it was out of season and no one was around besides me. The holiday resort remains pretty much deserted for most of the year, and so I had all the peace and quiet I desired.

Deserted landscape with the village of Arniston in the far distance

It allows for a contemplative and meditative existence, with time and space in abundance, or so it seems when I sit and observe these rocky shores with no demands, no destination or need to do anything or be anywhere other than here and now, in the eternal moment, as the observer of these ancient shores. I hope you can also get a chance to enter this kind of space too, wherever you are on this beautiful planet we call home.

(photos my own)