DE HOOP – NATURE UNCHANGED BY TWO CENTURIES

“Ever wondered what it’s like to kick back in a pristine natural coastal environment so ancient and unchanged that it’s become the benchmark for measuring environmental change in South Africa?”

- CHRIS BATEMAN

In the De Hoop Collection in the De Hoop Nature Reserve, a private/public leisure resort in the Overberg region is jealously guarded by a team of private and Cape Nature Conservation wardens. As a life-long angler who’s seen much of our coastline, (no fishing or collection of any sort allowed here), I’ve often imagined what numerous coastal ecosystems I’ve found myself in would be like without varying multitudes of cottages, people, litter, pollution and general degradation. Like bees to honey, De Hoop attracts people precisely because of the absence of these factors – folk from all over the world. Little wonder that the Vlei has been declared a global Ramsar Wetlands site and the coastline a Marine Protected Area. De Hoop Nature Reserve is a treasurehouse of 1 500 plant species, the most diverse in the Cape Floral kingdom, many found only here, with 260 bird species including globally-threatened blue cranes, vulnerable Cape griffon vultures, Denham’s bustard, the rare Damara and Caspian terns and African black oystercatchers. We met birders, botanists, Southern Right whale watchers and archaeologists, not to mention those keen to catch a fresh-water-lake glimpse of the rare Cape Clawless otter or simply view Bontebok or Cape Mountain, Zebra or Eland grazing outside their pastoral cottage windows.

The Vlei