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Fish Hoek (, on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula in Cape Town , South Africa . Previously a separate municipality, Fish Hoek is now part of the Cape Town Unicity. It is approximately 35 kilometres by road from Fish Hoek to the centre of Cape Town, a journey that can take anything from 30 minutes to two hours, depending on the traffic. There is also a good suburban railway link with Cape Town. As a coastal suburb of Cape Town, Fish Hoek is popular as a residence for commuters and holidaymakers alike. The traditional industries of 'trek' fishing and angling coexist with the leisure pursuits of surfing, sailing and sunbathing. Fish Hoek is famous for being a "dry" area - one of the conditions placed by the owner who gave the land for development was that there be no alcohol sold there. Nowadays, alcohol is available in restaurants and bars but there are no bottle stores. HISTORY The town of Fish Hoek dates from 1918, when the first houses were established on land that was part of a farm owned by the De Villiers family. Today Fish Hoek is regarded as a suburb of greater Cape Town and lies on the railway line from the central business districts of that city to Simon's Town in the south. Fish Hoek has become well-known as a tourist resort and as a place where elderly people retire from more northern latitudes. GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE Fish Hoek is situated in a broad, low valley, between two and three kilometres wide, which runs from west to east across the girth of the Cape Peninsula. When sealevels were higher than they are today the valley used to be a sea passage that separated the Cape Peninsula into northern and southern islands. Fish Hoek is at the eastern end of the valley. The villages of Noordhoek and Kommetjie are at the western end, on the Atlantic coast. The valley is generally sandy and the bedrock is Cape Granite . In places this is deeply weathered and in the past the rotted granite was mined for pockets of the mineral Kaolinite , which is used to make ceramic goods such as hand basins and bath tubs. The valley is famous for 12,000 year old Paleolithic skeletons discovered in a cave (now called Peer's Cave or Peers' Cave ) by Bertie Peers and his father in 1927. Bertie Peers was a lover and explorer of the great outdoors, a fine amateur scientist and a dedicated naturalist but his enthusiasm eventually cost him his life, when he was fatally struck by a Puff Adder (Greenland, 1978). Fish Hoek has a balmy mediterranean climate and is spared over hot summer days by the frequent visits of the south-easterly gales known locally as "the Cape Doctor ". It has a fine long beach and is a good spot for swimming and fishing. In the scan above, the beach is seen from high ground on the southern margin of the valley and the view is roughly towards the north west. The mountains nearby are famous for large numbers of complex Caves in sandstones of the Table Mountain Group. Caves are usually found in Limestones and it is not common to find complex cave systems in pure Sandstone . REFERENCES Greenland, Cedryl 1978. The story of Peers' Cave. C. Greenland, Cape Town, 35pp. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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