On the route between Cape Town’s city center and the Cape of Good Hope, my tour bus sped past the lovely, boulder-strewn crescent of Oudekraal Beach without the slightest acknowledgment from our guide. At first this did not seem odd; in a country blessed with more than 100 beaches – most of them exquisite – perhaps Oudekrall was not special enough to warrant a mention. I snapped a photo from the window and put it put of my mind. That evening, I downloaded the day’s photos and puzzled over the shot. Our tour guide had painstakingly identified every other site on the tour, in French, English, Afrikaans, and German. So why was he mute about this beach? My curiosity now piqued, I researched Oudekraal and discovered a history of mishaps and bad luck – was it possible my guide believed this beach to be cursed?calm

Oudekraal Beach spreads beneath the Twelve Apostles massif

Oudekraal’s first recorded instance of bad luck was in 1608, when the Dutch vessel Huis te Crayenstein, sailing in heavy fog that obscured the coastline, ran aground on the rocks behind the Lion’s Head, just below Oudekraal. The crew was picked up by a French ship sailing nearby and delivered to Cape Town, where arrangements were immediately begun to save the cargo, which included 19 chests of gold coin. Ship’s records indicate that 16 chests were recovered. Of the remaining three, two were thought to have been torn from their cleats and thrown into the gunner’s room, where they slid through the ports and into the sea. The few pieces of gold found lying about in the ship’s saloon and on shore indicated the third had been broken open and plundered; thieves were believed to have carried their booty up the mountain and hidden it there.

Fifty years later, Oudekraal’s curse seems to be alive and well. In 1957, the township granted the owner of the 44 hectares of land surrounding the beach the right to develop the property. But when he presented plans for a luxury housing estate in 1996, environmentalists opposed the project because of the ecological sensitivity of the site and Muslims lobbied for denial because of graves in the area. The City of Cape Town, perhaps recognizing that the land was the most valuable piece of natural real estate on the peninsula still in private hands, turned to the High Court and succeeded in having the development rights overturned.

Today Odekraal is best known by divers who descend into Justin’s Caves, a rocky outcrop less than a ten-minute swim from the shore, where canyons covered with pink china coral await at a depth of 45 feet. Just a short distance offshore, the 1698 wreck of the Huis te Crayenstein lures divers with legends of treasure waiting to be salvaged.

Granite boulders attract a resident sea lion colony to Oudekraal

Whether or not two old treasure chests lie on the ocean bottom beneath shifting sands, just waiting to be discovered, may never be known. But I know this much. Divers searching for ancient gold coins are missing the real treasure of Oudekraal: its deserted expanse of golden sand, its glassy surfing waves, and its rock-lined tidal pools that create calm lagoons perfect for swimming. You can keep crowded Camps Bay and Clifton Beach; give me cursed Odekraal any day.

Photo credits: Top, Barbara Weibel; bottom, Warrenski
Article by Barbara Weibel at Hole In The Donut Travels