Had the San still inhabited the numerous sea-facing caves on Steenbokfontein farm outside Lambert’s Bay in the early morning of January 16 1901, they would have seen a fireworks display that may well have troubled them.
But these denizens of the West Coast were long gone when the HMS Sybille sent up flares after running aground about 2km from the caves. As we uncover later, they probably last visited these caves many hundreds of years ago on one of their coastal seafood quests before their ancient foraging grounds were usurped by herders and European farmers.
Weskus Grotjie is a destination Annette and I have been hankering to experience for some time. Perched halfway up one of only two rocky outcrops for miles around, this sizeable cave has been sensitively closed in with wood, stone and glass and offers unspoilt views over the sandy coastal plains to the old farm buildings and pristine shoreline in the distance.
It offers a good balance of being embedded in nature while offering comforting modern conveniences — a venue to rediscover your inner caveman in a rustic-chic setting. It’s the sort of place we need to bank lots of quiet and solitude before the clamour of the festive period — “the most wonderful time of the year” — tests our growing crowd and noise sensitivities.
In addition, there’s no better place to husband the hermit and dreamer in you than a cave. The only visitor we receive is a 22-year-old tortoiseshell cat called Chutney. She is particularly agile for her age and we spoil her with finely chopped biltong, though not too much, as we still need her hungry enough to hunt any undesirable wildlife that ventures inside, especially the marauding solifuges we saw on the stoep last night while toasting the vermillion sunset.
But Chutney spends most of her time cuddled up between us as we lounge on the bed, reading, dreaming and gazing wistfully at the forever view to the west.
On a double bed made of hardwood timber from the nearby wreck of the HMS Sybille, it’s perhaps not surprising my mind interrogates the curious circumstances that caused the ship’s loss. Sure, there was a storm, and the officer commanding decided to get the ship out of a shallow and slippery anchorage, but the actions of both the designated captain and navigating officer in heading the ship back to the coast, in the dark, without fixing their position, were inexcusable.
According to Kitta Burger, the late and much-loved matriarch of the current Steenbokfontein farm clan, a person who did witness the flares from the HMS Sybille (a 3,400-tonne, second-class cruiser with 14 guns) that came to grief opposite the farm on that fateful morning was Izak Burger, the 23-year-old son of Steenbokfontein farm’s then owner, Dirk Burger.
With the storm still raging, Izak set off on his horse to Lambert’s Bay to seek help for the stricken ship and its crew. The HMS Sybille’s captain, Hugh Williams, had handed over command to Lt Hubert Holland the day before and then holed up in a local hostelry after landing 50 soldiers and two field guns ashore. These resources were to be used to stymie the Boers’ plan to go further south and also to deter generals Hertzog and Kritzinger from receiving any more seaborne weaponry from their European allies.
Ironically, the same small bay in which the HMS Sybille was wrecked was apparently regularly used as a pick-up point for Boer munitions by local farmer, Sybrand Engelbrecht. The story goes that the Boers’ German and French allies would wait in their ships offshore while Engelbrecht and his comrades rowed out in small boats to retrieve the arms to stock the “weapons houses” situated on various farms in the sandveld.
It’s probable that the sinking of the HMS Sybille, the salvage attention she got for some time (mainly to stop her big guns falling into Boer hands) and the increased naval presence may have halted the Boers’ supply line, at least temporarily.
Surprisingly, an unlikely and heartwarming romance between Boer and Brit flourished in the aftermath of the tragedy. One of the British salvage engineers, Harry Blades, a paying guest on Steenbokfontein farm, fell for Dirk Burger’s youngest daughter. But there was a problem.
As well as the natural enmity between her father and her suitor, Martjie was only 15 at the time, so two things needed to happen before they could marry: the war had to end and they had to wait until she turned 21 when she would no longer require her father’s permission. After finishing up his salvage work on-site, Blades took a job in Cape Town, and after five years they married and moved to the UK. Martjie never came back.
Later that day Annette and I extricate ourselves from the cosseting clutches of our cave and head out to explore the caves of the farm’s other rocky outcrop, Simon se Klip (SSK). I’ve read as much as I can about the caves and rock art found here in the info file provided, but there’s no map indicating what is to be found where. As a result, we blunder about the western and southern faces, yet soon find a path that leads to two caves in the southeast.
The first is very large and showcases intriguing patterns formed by millennia of water, smoke, sedimentation and erosion. Along its innermost and east-facing walls, indistinct red ochre rock-art paintings proliferate, but the most striking are seemingly more recent drawings of sheep in a black pigment that rests on top of some of the older San paintings.
It doesn’t make sense until I research it more thoroughly later. Embarrassingly, I also learn we missed the main rock-art cave on the northwestern face of SSK. According to a 2006 paper from the University of Cape Town’s archaeology department by Antonieta Jerardino and Tim Maggs, groups of traditional hunter-gatherers transitioned into small-stock owners about 2,000 years ago under the southward-spreading Khoi influence of the time. Or could it be the San’s millennia-old cave habitats were usurped by the herders and the San returned inland?
The smaller cave close by has a lower roof and we need to fold ourselves in half to get a good look at the decorated handprints on the ceiling. They’re similar to those found in the nearby Elands Bay cave, which are thought to be part of a San tradition of drawing spiritual powers from the rock or marking places of particular spiritual significance.
We end our outing by walking the labyrinth on the way back to our cave. At its centre is a memorial plaque to Kitta Burger, who died in 2021, a fitting tribute to a remarkable woman central to the preservation of the heritage and folklore surrounding this historic farm.
Travel Notes
Getting there: Steenbokfontein Farm is 250km from Cape Town (N7; R366 and R365) and 8km from Lambert’s Bay. It’s tar all the way and only 2km on a reasonable dirt track to the farm’s cave accommodation.
What to do here: The farm also offers more active guests opportunities to mountain bike, rock climb, explore the on-site caves and rock art, walk the labyrinth, and fish, walk, surf and bodyboard on the nearby stretch of private beach. Down the road in Lambert’s Bay you can visit Bird Island Nature Reserve and Sandveld Museum; go curio and clothing shopping at Driftwood Den; eat out at Isabellas or Muisbosskerm; and drink good coffee at the Mad Hatter.
What to take with you: All your food, drinks plus books, walking shoes, a hat and a costume.
Suggested reference/reading: Kitta Burger’s stories (kittaburger.co.za) and the paper by Antonieta Jerardino and Tim Maggs, “Simon se Klip at Steenbokfontein” (available on Open UCT).
Where we stayed: There are a number of accommodation options on Steenbokfontein farm, but this time we opted for the unique Weskus Grotjie. Call Albert on 083 702 1414.
Best time of year to go: March to November.
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