“It’s working!”
My friend had caught the habitual shift in my eyes.
“You’re starting to relax. But you’re so used to being busy that you’re feeling guilty about not doing anything.”
I don’t remember her exact words, but I felt the nail punch into my skull. She was right. Between work, marriage, motherhood, friends, social media, and countless daily obligations, I had unlearned my once proficient skill of relaxation. While I’m very comfortable having a laid-back day, I can’t remember the last time it actually involved a full day. At a push it would be a few hours of easy going socialising before I was scrubbing dishes and searching for the one inevitably missing sock. Without realising, I had misplaced something more concerning than an odd sock. I had lost my Hakuna Matata.
A weekend in Yzerfontein had unwittingly set me on the path to find my carefree restfulness again. Driving out of Cape Town, Table Mountain slowly shrinks and the mountains seem to move as Signal Hill shifts position with Lion’s Head. Unaccustomed to seeing the iconic mountainscape from this angle, the mind is already forced to shift away from the everyday perceptions. As if moving through a portal, billboards, exhaust fumes, and eye line traffic scenes are replaced by wide tracts of neatly cropped farmland, the dry golden grasses a stark contrast against the deep blue of the frigid Atlantic Ocean.
In Yzerfontein we discover a sleepy land of fishermen and fynbos, and an ethereal stillness that invites you to put the brakes on, to move slowly, to disconnect. It’s a place to turn the phone off and say “I’m not available”.
Driving along roads lined with small retail stores and untamed, squat vegetation, we head to the southern end of Yzerfontein along Dassen Island Drive, where secluded, scarcely lived-in luxury homes are set amongst the rare coastal fynbos. Despite nothing but a wild garden between us and the ocean, we could barely see the beach from our accommodation for the steep sand dunes that lead down to it. It was a beautiful feeling of being in the midst of nature, yet still having to set out to discover what was over the ridge.
Taking advantage of the sunny skies and rare windless conditions, we traipsed the wooden trail through the eclectic shrubbery and raced down the sand dunes with kids in tow. With no signs of human activity on the beach, it was as if the entire 22km of shoreline from Grotto Bay to Yzerfontein beach was our personal playground. Massive boulders with spitting waves crashing over the top begged to be conquered, we found buried treasures like “smiley-face” crab shells, and it was so freeing to run around with the kids, not worrying about who we inconvenienced with our squealing mud ball fights.
When the hunger pangs hit, we headed home and dumped the kids in a hot water bath on the wooden deck while we lit the braai and popped the cork on our first bottle of wine. The resident ostriches paid us a late afternoon visit, completely unperturbed by the kids knocking their greetings on the windows, noses pushed up against the glass. As the wind awakened from its slumber and the sun dropped between the evening clouds in its golden-grey haze, the Dassen Island lighthouse began casting its swirling beam to safely guide ships through the ink-black ocean.
Sinking into a comfy wicker chair, with a cosy blanket draped over my lap, and a glass of crisp wine twirling in my hand, that lighthouse seemed to have another message just for me: Here lies your Hakuna Matata.
Where to stay?
If you would like to experience the secluded side of Yzerfontein as I did, Pearl on Bay Guest House has luxury rooms with sliding glass doors that open out onto beautiful sea views. The unrated guest house offers 4-star quality service and has a swimming pool and braai area for truly relaxing Hakuna Matata moments.
Have you visited Yzerfontein?
