Baboon Point, Elands Bay: Surf and Turf.

Elands Bay is about an 2 hour drive up the west coast from Cape Town and is a very sleepy town indeed. Famous for its left handed surf break which is a near mirror image of Supertubes in Jeffrey’s Bay. Elands or E-Bay is also a great place to see whales, west coast flowers and Khoi-san rock art.

The cave at Elands Bay is one of the most important archaeological sites in South Africa. Its history tells a tale of 10,000 years. The cave has also moved in relation to the sea. Today the site is near the sea, but in times past the sea was about 40km away. The area between in-between was a marshland inhabited by many prey animals. Their extinct remains have been excavated by archaeologists, as well as more recent human burials inside and in front of the cave.

Baboon point has been put forward as a national heritage site and its fate will be decided on Thursday. There are a number of developers hanging in the wings to build a “modern settlement” of 75 holiday homes, should the bid not go through.

“Given the high levels of interest among national and international scholars in such fields, we believe it would be an utter travesty for the archaeological sites at Baboon Point … to be in any way disturbed by residential or commercial development. In short, Baboon Point is a site of rare archaeological significance which offers the opportunity, in its presently undeveloped state, for continuing research into the origins of humankind and human activities,”