ST#5: Misty Cliffs - Watch It!
The cache was originally simply called Misty Cliffs, but has now been incorporated as 1 of the 8 cache Strandloper Trail series starting north of Scarborough and ending at the south end of Witsand Beach. It is hidden at a spectacular spot and wonderful location to Watch It - the sea with the Atlantic waves crashing over the rocky shoreline and of course, the sunset!
The cache, a large screw-capped plastic pot, is located in the rocks just above the beach just north of the tiny preservation village of Misty Cliffs and just beyond the south end of Witsands (beach). A crayfish factory (no info found on this facility) and boat slipway are located at the north end of this beach and can be accessed by car from the parking area @ S34 10.638 E18 20.640 at the end of a small road off the Soetwater access road.
The whole area is worth spending some time exploring and a fine beach top path runs from Witsands to Misty Cliffs. The best experience is to watch the sun set on a fine day from the cache location or indeed anywhere convenient along this wonderful stretch of coast. See if you can capture a great sunset/wave picture to upload with your log!
Witsands is a rugged relatively remote natural beach popular with surfers and kitesurfers. It can get very windy here and so may not be ideal for sunbathing. The wild beauty of the large sand dunes and typically rough seas makes this a spectacular place. No facilities are available and parking is at various spots along the road with several tracks/steps giving access down to the beach.
For surfers and watchers, there are 4 recognised wave breaks around here. The Crayfish Factory (rated 5*) one of Cape Town's heaviest waves - is a scary very big right-hand wave that breaks on a outside reef and is for experienced (‘pro’, ‘crazy’, ‘kamikaze’) surfers only - hazards include sharks,kelp and rocks! Witsands (rated 1*) itself just a few hundred metres to the left is ‘dull and boring’ in comparison.
See here for more details, here for great descriptions of the breaks and check this great video for the ride!
Misty Cliffs is a wonderfully remote conservation village built along a narrow strip of coast and up the lower steep side of Platkop with some of the most awe-inspiring views of the Atlantic. Waves here can get notoriously big, so it isn’t really a swimmers paradise and even surfers take along an extra fin. It is popular with locals, divers and those wanting to escape it all.
To reach the Cache:
Use any of several access paths/steps which link the road to the beach-top path, but the nearest, a mere 60m away, is by the road-side parking area @ S34 10.887 E18 21.558.