A weekend in Arniston

This last weekend, a group of friends organised a weekend away in Arniston.  Coffee machine, Scotch, and camera gear packed, we left town on Friday afternoon, around Somerset West we all sent location pins to our WhatsApp group to see who was in the lead..Nas was in the lead, by quite some distance.  Once we were over Sir Lowry’s Pass, Nas phoned in to say they had stopped for a snack.  Michael and I were convinced we were now in the lead!

We reached Arniston at around 19:30, after finding out we had lost the race, Nas had somehow beaten us.  Anyway, we were all just in time for our dinner booking at the hotel.  After dinner we took a walk down to the beach where the fishermen were still out catching fish.  One fisherman said he had been fishing in Arniston since the early 1970s, but he couldn’t chat anymore, he had to quickly put a shark back in the water that he had caught by mistake.  Back at the house, there was much laughter over a game of Cards Against Humanity, and at about 2:00 we all turned in for the night.  I was keen to head out at 6:00 for some sunrise shots over the cliffs.

Waenhuiskrans cave in the distance

I hadn’t been to Arniston in years, but I had a vague idea as to where I wanted to be for some photos, but I couldn’t quite remember.  We left the house at 6:00 in a bit of a rush, the sun was already rising and we had a bit of a walk still ahead of us.  By mistake I over-shot where I needed to be, but managed to figure it out, and got where I wanted to be just in time for the sunrise.  There were fisherman right down by the sea, and the sunrise was quite spectacular.  Nas had his drone with him, and he got some really great footage.

The Cauldron

The rest of the day we relaxed at the house and took a walk through Kassiesbaai, an old fishing village, characterised by it’s houses with lime-washed walls and thatched roofs.  The entire village as a whole is a national monument. We then took a drive through to Bredarsdorp to pick up some salad ingredients for dinner.  In the afternoon we attempted to get to the Waenhuiskrans cave, but I’m not sure we got the tides right, because I was carrying a lot of camera gear I opted to stay on the beach rather than risk getting my gear, and everyone’s cell phones wet!

Kassiesbaai

At 18:00 I headed back off to the cliffs to see what the sunset would be be like.  I’m glad I went because the sunset really was spectacular.  The fishermen were there again, and I got some interesting shots of them fishing with the sea in front of them.  Once I had the shots I wanted I decided to head back to the house before it was too dark, and before dinner was cold!  Around the dinner table everyone seemed keen for a 5:00 wakeup so we could watch the sunrise on our last morning.

We had a fantastic sunset the second evening

The next morning we were all up, dressed, with coffee in our hands as we departed for the cliffs in the dark.  I knew what I wanted in terms of photos during the morning, and made sure I had packed my Trigger Trap for some long exposures.  One of the shots, which I got was a long exposure of a rock formation called The Cauldron.  Once I knew I had the shot I moved on, the sun was rising fast and I had limited time to get the last of the shots I wanted.  We all met up at the bottom of the beach opposite the cliffs as the sun was rising.  Afterwards we headed back to the house for more coffee and some breakfast.

3 minute exposure at The Cauldron

We spent the rest of day down at the beach, and relaxing at the house.  We then packed up slowly, and left around 16:00 stopping at Aguhas for some photos at the sign where it says you are now at the southern most point of Africa, before the long drive back home.  All-in-all it was a fantastic weekend away, full of great company, good weather, great Scotch, and excellent photo opportunities.  We had hardly left Arniston and we had started discussing our next weekend away.

[tg_masonry_gallery gallery_id=”10531″ layout=”contained” columns=”2″]