I want to share with you some of the more dramatic photos I captured on my travels along the African south coast today. The Cape, as it is known, is divided into western, eastern and Northern and these three make up the western and southern quadrants of South Africa. My exploration covers the thin sliver of coastline at the very south, situated in the Western Cape province, about 550km east of Cape Town or the Cape of Good Hope, as it has been known by sailors since the 17th century.

I’m in the Garden Route a stretch along the south coast, which has some of the best beaches, nature, and climate for exploring and outdoor adventure sports or activity. You should definitely add it to your list of places to visit when you next plan a trip. it’s the furthest south one can be on the African continent, so is certainly one of the most distant places on the planet. If things go into meltdown in the northern hemisphere due to the outbreak of world war, then I recommend this remote location as a pleasantly inspiring and supportive hideaway resort.

Today the weather is hot and yet also stormy, in that there is an afternoon build up of thundercloud and imminent rain. I managed to wait long enough for the heat to be lessened by the cloud cover before going out, and also got in a few interesting photos before the rain shower arrived. As a result the photos look really interesting and intriguing, with the brooding rain clouds over the ocean.

You can see the burnt protea bushes left over from the historic Knysna-Plett fires of 2017. The protea is the national flower of South Africa, and grows specifically in the Western Cape province here as part of the fynbos species indigenous to the area. Even though the rest of the the indigenous fynbos shrub and ground cover has regrown in the past almost three years, the bigger bushes or small trees are nowhere to be seen, except for these charred remains, still standing here since then.

In another photo the beautiful fynbos shrub-like ground cover looks lush and positively contrasts the otherwise macabre sight of the remaining tree stumps of alien gum tress, all burnt out and piercing the brooding thundery sky with their sharp needle-like spires.

Having reached the rugged rocky shoreline from the cliff tops, I used a fish eye lens attachment which I clipped onto my phone to take some wide angle pictures. As you can see I didn’t always line it up perfectly so a corner might reveal the lens edge in some of the shots. No worries, I will keep practising. Nevertheless, I still want to add some of the dramatic scenes visible form the southernmost shores of Africa. It is a rather bleak and stark world here from this angle, some might conclude, but it looks quite sparkling and inviting on a clear sunny day with blue sky and thus equally blue or turquoise sea water.

From my particular perspective, on this shoreline, with the current weather conditions, I was able to capture a really moody, sultry theme. And the fisheye lens, which I bought in Kuala Lumpur from some street sellers, adds the ability to capture a sightly wider angle which adds to the dramatic element of the shot. It probably looks like a remote, desolate, isolated rocky shoreline – which it is, here in the distant south. The vast throng of toursit that flock here during the current summer season are probably on the beaches or in the better known areas. I have been able to access this remote unknown part of the Garden Route shoreline because I like going off the popular track and finding less-frequented regions, like this one here today.

I managed to capture some of the indigenous fynbos flora as it clings to the steep cliff face above the shoreline. Much of it is succulents, which are not quite cactus, but still very rugged and resilient thick juicy type of plant. You can still see how the fire came right up to the cliff edges and burned everything and anything possible, even here surrounded by rock. The gale force winds were so severe during that epic 2017 fire, that nothing was spared from the ravages of that perfect storm.

Down at the shoreline, after scrambling down the cliff side, the vast empty space was remote and rocky, with no paths and not a human soul in sight. Humans are by nature social creatures and like to congregate in groups. I see it on the beaches, where you might have a 5km stretch of beautiful white beach, but the tourists will all bunch up with their umbrellas and beach kit in one or two clumps near the entrance steps. Maybe they don’t want to walk to far, but it looks like a little umbrella village all bunched up when they could spread out across the entire beach, which remains empty except for shoreline walkers of course. It is an interesting social phenomena. I, on the other hand, like to avoid the crowd and prefer the wide open empty space, all for myself in a sense. I wonder what that says about my personality in relation to the norm?

Anyway, thanks for viewing my latest travel snaps, taken a few hours ago. I hope you could appreciate the sparse and spartan empty African vistas way down at the southernmost edge. Life on the edge is always interesting and out of the ordinary or the norm, with perhaps a more moody and brooding theme to it, conducive to introspection, contemplation and transcendence. Not for those who need the comfort of the crowd or the city, but more for the outsider perhaps.

Until the next episode of The shape of the Cape, this is Julescape signing out. See you on the other side.