CULTURE
The country’ s coast isn’ t exactly gentle. It’ s more sharks, shipwrecks and blistering winds than gentle stroll on golden sands. That’ s why lighthouses sprouted: to keep ships from smashing into rocks and give sailors a fighting chance, at least, of making it home with their cargo intact. Today, those same towers have traded fear for fascination, becoming some of the quirkiest cultural pit stops you can cram into a road trip.
Here in SA, it all kicked off in 1824 with the Green Point Lighthouse in Cape Town, a chequered stone number that still flashes away on the Atlantic Seaboard. Fast-forward about one-and-a-half centuries, and you get to North Sand Bluff in KwaZulu-Natal( 1968), the“ baby” of the bunch. Together, they bookend South Africa’ s lighthouse story, from candlepower to electricity, from colonial trade to container ships.
Think a giant magnifying glass on steroids. That’ s the Fresnel lens: the contraption that takes a lightbulb the size of the one in your bathroom and turns it into a beam you can see 30km away! Each lighthouse has its own flash pattern( something like Morse code, only prettier), so sailors know which one they’ re spotting.
And the foghorn? A different beast. It roars when the mist rolls in, not because the light“ tells” it to, but because visibility’ s gone. Think of it as the surround sound to the lighthouse’ s visual show.
“ Don’ t we have GPS for this?” you ask. Sure, but batteries die, satellites fail, and nothing beats a good old-fashioned beam slicing through the dark. Plus, these towers have moved beyond utility: they’ re cultural mascots. They stand for guidance, resilience, and the kind of solitude that makes you want to write poetry – or at least an Insta caption.
Fast facts( aka Lighthouse pub quiz ammo)
Oldest: Green Point( 1824) Youngest: North Sand Bluff( 1968) Tallest: Slangkop, Kommetjie( 33m) Most Remote: Dassen Island Quirkiest: Umhlanga – no keeper’ s house, just a luxury hotel babysitting it. Total Active: About 45 along the SA coast
Once upon a time, keepers lived on-site, polishing glass, trimming wicks and literally switching the lights on. Today? Automation. Electricity or solar runs the system, and Transnet monitors everything remotely. Sadly, no grizzled old man with an oil can telling tales of iconic shipwrecks any more.
Umhlanga Rocks
SUMMER 2025 / 26 • rovesa. co. za | 63