Cape Infanta is a secret hamlet on the eastern bank of the Breede River northeast of the southern tip of Africa. It was named after the Portuguese mariner João Infante, who accompanied Bartolomeu Dias on his exploratory voyage along the Southern African coast in 1487-88.
It is almost as difficult to get to Infanta these days as it was when Bart and João first sailed past in their comically small wooden sailing ships. Because you have to brave 70km along a gravel road from Swellendam to reach it, or 90km of dirt roads from Bredasdorp. And both these roads are mined with tyre-shredding stones that regularly have out-of-shape, urban SUV drivers sweating over wheel spanners, jacks and YouTube videos on how to change a tyre with half their luggage unpacked on the side of the road, while their partners and children sit on suitcases, sulking.
The Infanta holiday-home owners prefer it this way. These treacherous stones rule out all but the most intrepid travellers. Frankly, locals would rather these uitlanders visited Witsand, which is far more built up and can be easily accessed via tar road from the other side of the Breede River.
Mudlark Riverfront Lodge is a small fishing hotel on the eastern bank of the Breede River, a few kilometres from the mouth at Infanta. It was built by Hilary and Tim Smith, a fishing-mad couple from Hout Bay, around the turn of the century. It is a small hotel constructed mainly of wood, consisting of a central sitting room, a dining area and kitchen, with two rooms attached to it. A further three rooms are dotted among the milkwoods and spekboom.
An outdoor veranda, pleasantly entangled by cooling vegetation, is a meditative spot from which to watch the tides and the boats coming in and out on the river while sipping a long cool drink clinking with ice and listening to the weavers going about their business.
Ornithologists looking to increase their wader lifer count would be well employed here for a few hours, with a set of binoculars and a bird book. The sonorous call of a southern boubou perched on an aloe may even provide them respite from the constant chirruping of the industrious weavers.
An honesty bar is in the corner of the living room among nautical and fishing memorabilia, which appear authentic in this setting. Menacing marlin and sailfish spears are mounted on the wall beside an old-fashioned brass diving helmet. Wooden replicas of boats abound. Planter’s chairs with foldout wings on their armrests provide a comfortable place to read a book or just rest and chat after a long day’s fishing. Though I am not sure about their design.
Wind chimes rattle and clink amid the birdsong. The renosterveld, which appears on the riverbanks, can be hot, dry and inhospitably rocky out in the open, but a combination of shade, plants and a prevailing breeze means it is perpetually cool at the lodge.
These structures appear to have been constructed with surrounding materials, sitting almost unseen among the milkwoods in the way that human dwellings situated in naturally beautiful areas should.
A huge breakfast and dinner are provided at a long dining room table and are included in the fare. Children are catered for separately an hour before adults in a welcome return to the past. It was nice to have the opportunity to get a word in with some grown-ups over a glass of wine. Rodney is an excellent chef and serves wonderful, home-cooked meals in large portions. Leek and broccoli soup, grunter pâté, venison stew and roosterkoek have all featured as highlights on the menu on various stays.
Mudlark is an excellent place to teach your children to fish. Or at least for Kenny, the Malawian fishing expert, to teach them. He knows the spots and tides, and where to hook the tiddlers when nothing else is happening. After all, teaching children to fish involves far too much knot-tying, hook baiting and overwind unravelling to be regarded as relaxing by any parent looking to rest after a sustained period of breadwinning.
Real fishermen are fastidious types, who like nothing better than fiddling with traces, sharpening hooks or fussing over splicing braid to a leader with an Albright knot, so perhaps teaching their children is less tiresome for them.
This is also an excellent place to fish yourself. Cob, garrick and grunter are all caught regularly off the banks and boats if the conditions are right and your line spends enough time in the water. If you are unlucky, the taxman (a shark) may even help itself to your catch before you have landed it.
Bobbing on the incoming tide at dawn with a tight line, feeling a mudprawn being nibbled on your hook, while looking out at the river, with early sunlight reflecting on the hills of De Hoop in the background, is magnificent. And the rush of the fight after the fish strikes and before you let it go to fight another day is thrilling.
Back at Mudlark after a few hours of fishing, we compare the catch and the tussles over Rodney’s full English breakfast, and admire the photographic evidence on our phones while categorising each fish according to Hillary’s laminated charts. We will have admired the tortoise basking in the sun on the way up and will discuss the genet’s flourishing black and white tail that we saw in the firelight the evening before. At this stage I am always thankful that my family doesn’t rely on my fishing skills to be fed.
It is a constant conundrum whether to share the best places. Some people, particularly the extremely rich, go to extraordinary lengths to keep the best things to themselves, in the absurd belief that they have earned it. God forbid, some even ban family members from bragging on social media in an effort to preserve the scarcity. Comfortably contrarian, I am comfortable evangelising to those willing and able to change a tyre.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.