 The
Best beaches in South Africa
- Long Beach (Cape
Town):
This 4-kilometer-long (2 1/2-mile-long) stretch of sand--almost as wide
as it is long--is both the city's best walking beach and the best place
to go horseback riding. Even if you don't have time to sample the waves,
at least stop to admire it during your Chapman's
Peak Drive.
- Clifton
(Cape Town):
A beautiful beach just minutes from the city center, this is where Cape
Town's beautiful people like to parade. It's also the most wind-free
area in Cape Town--handy when the southeaster, known locally as the
Cape Doctor, is driving you mad. Divided by large boulders into First,
Second, Third, and Fourth beaches, it is accessible only via steep steps.
Other great Cape Town beaches include Camps
Bay and Llandudno.
 De
Hoop Nature Reserve (Whale
Coast, Western Cape):
Tall white dunes sliding into the sea, coves, evocative limestone outcrops,
an aquamarine sea, and picture-perfect rock pools make this reserve's
beaches the most glorious in the Overberg,
if not the entire Cape.- Noetzie (Garden Route, Western
Cape):
One of the closest beaches to Knysna is also the most charming, not
least because of the minicastles overlooking it. If the sea is too
wild, take a dip in the lagoon.
 Plettenberg
Bay (Garden
Route, Western Cape):
It's a tossup between Lookout and Robberg Beach, but safe to say
that "Plet," as the locals call it, has the best beaches on
the Garden Route. Pity about the monstrous houses that overlook them.
Head for Lookout for a view of the distant Outeniqua Mountains, and
Robberg for whale-watching.- Port
St Johns (Wild
Coast, Eastern
Cape):
The entire Wild Coast is renowned for its magnificent, deserted
coastline; but since Port St Johns is one of the more accessible
points, you may wish to head straight here and laze away the sultry
days on Second Beach, a perfect crescent fringed with tropical
vegetation. For total seclusion, head for Umngazi, a few miles south.
 Rocktail
Bay (Maputaland,
KwaZulu-Natal):
With the "Holiday Coast" surrounding Durban
largely ruined by an uninterrupted ribbon of development, and the Greater
St Lucia Wetland Park's beaches marred by four-wheel-drive tracks, the
province's best
Blue Flag flies on SA beaches
South Africa's coastline sparkles! Eight local
beaches won international recognition at this year's Blue Flag Awards, a
European-based campaign which measures beaches against strict
environmental, tourist and safety standards.
Blue
Flag, a well-known environmental and tourism campaign in Europe, gives
local and foreign visitors the knowledge that their beaches are clean,
environmentally sound and adhere to international safety and other tourist
standards.
 When
South
Africa joined the Blue Flag campaign in 2001 as the first country
outside Europe to participate, Blue Flag began to grow from a European
to an international campaign. Started in France in 1985, the campaign
now runs in 23 countries. Many other countries outside Europe, including
the Caribbean, Morocco and Iceland, are working towards Blue Flag status.
South Africa's 2002 award-winning beaches are:
 The
Blue Flag is given to beaches that meet 14 criteria spanning three aspects
of coastal management: water quality, environmental education and
information, and safety and services, which include excellent life-saving
standards, top-rate parking and sparkling ablution facilities. The award
is given for one year only, so beaches must continually strive to keep up
their standards and try for the award the following year.
The Blue Flag award not only communicates to the public
that beaches are safe and clean, but also educates the community about
the need to preserve the coastline – one of South
Africa’s natural treasures.
Durban beachfront
 If
Johannesburg
has a business culture and Cape Town has a culture culture, Durban has
a beach culture. Even the high-rise offices look out over the Indian Ocean,
and busy executives hang up their suits and ties, slip into shorts, and
jog along the beachfront at lunchtime. Many keep a surfboard in their
cars and catch a quick wave before or after work (or both).
The Durban
beachfront is a cultural experience. Here you will find holidaying
families, young surfer brats (grommets), Indian ladies elegantly walking
the sand in flowing silken saris, traditional healers collecting bottles
of seawater to use as muti (medicine) and young girls strutting
their stuff in the skimpiest of bikinis. Somehow it all works in one,
pretty weird, decidedly heterogeneous whole.
The sea really does play an important part - there
are two yacht clubs and one very big commercial harbour. The Bat Centre,
Durban's most interesting cultural venue, overlooks the small boat harbour
where stubby-nosed tugs come to rest after a hard morning pushing tankers
around. You can also lunch virtually in the shadow of huge container ships
and cruise liners as they enter the harbour through the narrow entrance in
front of the Bluff.
 Shopping
is a special experience in Durban - the eastern influence of the enormous
Indian population adds a touch of spice, literally and figuratively. You
can explore the Indian Market or just wander down Grey Street, where
you'll find all kinds of interesting little shops.
At the beachfront itself, you will find wonderful
examples of traditional beadwork and basketry for sale at incredibly low
prices. For something more upmarket, and very interesting, you just have
to see the Gateway Shopping Centre. It's so much more than your average
mall. It has a climbing wall and an enormous artificial standing wave -
the first artificial double-point break in the world.
Of course, Durban is really about surf. Another fun
thing to do is to paddle out on a sea kayak, or even do a short, gentle
white water trip on the nearby Umgeni River.
 Some
of the hardest climbs in South Africa are at the Wave Cave at Shongweni,
near Durban, and there are some fun bolted routes in the Kloof Gorge.
The diving just south of the city is great. In
winter and early spring, migratory ragged tooth sharks (Carcharias tauras)
are in residence at Aliwal Shoal, and can be visited on a specially
organised dive. But there are also a lot of coral-encrusted rock reefs
with pretty tropical fish for the less intrepid. For the hardcore diver,
Protea Banks is a must.
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