Betty's Bay Bettysbaai | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 34°21′47″S18°53′06″E / 34.363°S 18.885°E | |
Country | South Africa |
Province | Western Cape |
District | Overberg |
Municipality | Overstrand |
Area | |
• Total | 20.99 km2 (8.10 sq mi) |
Population (2011) [1] | |
• Total | 1,381 |
• Density | 66/km2 (170/sq mi) |
Racial makeup (2011) | |
• Black African | 3.7% |
• Coloured | 21.1% |
• Indian/Asian | 0.3% |
• White | 72.6% |
• Other | 2.3% |
First languages (2011) | |
• Afrikaans | 60.5% |
• English | 36.5% |
• Other | 3.0% |
Time zone | UTC+2 (SAST) |
PO box | 7141 |
Area code | 028 |
Betty's Bay is a small holiday town situated on the Overberg coast of South Africa's Western Cape province. It is located 100 km from Cape Town beneath the Kogelberg Mountains on the scenic R44 ocean drive between Pringle Bay and Kleinmond. This village stretches over 13 km along the coast. Tourism plays a large role in the town's economy due to its popularity with holiday makers from across the Western Cape and Cape Town in particular.
During colonial times Betty's Bay was allegedly a favourite place for runaway slaves,[ citation needed ] and in 1912 Betty's Bay became a formal whaling station running up until the 1930s. Remains of the whaling station can still be seen at Stony Point. [2]
Bettys Bay is named after Betty Youlden, daughter of the first developer of the area Arthur Youlden. [3]
Betty's Bay contains the Harold Porter National Botanical Garden as well as an African penguin colony in the Betty's Bay Marine Protected Area, which is one of the two Penguin colonies in the area of the Western Cape. The colony is situated in the Kogelberg and Stony Point Nature Reserve. When the former whaling station was closed, the endemic and endangered Southern African penguins started breeding here. [4]
Due to the town's location on the south-western coast and surrounding mountainous geography it receives near constant wind and ample rain throughout the year, With south-easterly winds bringing the occasional thunderstorm from the warmer eastern coast in summer, while winter brings persistent North-westerly to occasional Southerly frontal rain, sometimes hail, which can be very heavy at times.
Betty's Bay has a marine west coast oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb) which sees pleasant warm temperatures in summer, and mild to cool temperatures in winter with rain throughout the year.
Climate data for Betty's Bay | |||||||||||||
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Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Average high °C (°F) | 23.1 (73.6) | 23.3 (73.9) | 22.1 (71.8) | 20 (68) | 17.7 (63.9) | 15.7 (60.3) | 15.2 (59.4) | 15.2 (59.4) | 16.3 (61.3) | 18.4 (65.1) | 19.8 (67.6) | 21.9 (71.4) | 19.1 (66.3) |
Daily mean °C (°F) | 20 (68) | 20.1 (68.2) | 18.9 (66.0) | 16.9 (62.4) | 15 (59) | 13.1 (55.6) | 12.5 (54.5) | 12.6 (54.7) | 13.5 (56.3) | 15.4 (59.7) | 16.8 (62.2) | 18.9 (66.0) | 16.1 (61.1) |
Average low °C (°F) | 17.3 (63.1) | 17.5 (63.5) | 16.4 (61.5) | 14.4 (57.9) | 12.7 (54.9) | 10.7 (51.3) | 10.1 (50.2) | 10.1 (50.2) | 10.9 (51.6) | 12.7 (54.9) | 14.2 (57.6) | 16.2 (61.2) | 13.6 (56.5) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 39 (1.5) | 46 (1.8) | 93 (3.7) | 113 (4.4) | 42 (1.7) | 218 (8.6) | 175 (6.9) | 182 (7.2) | 92 (3.6) | 50 (2.0) | 90 (3.5) | 32 (1.3) | 1,172 (46.2) |
Source: https://www.bettysbay.info/awarenessheading/rainfall https://en.climate-data.org/africa/south-africa/western-cape/betty-s-bay-9162/ |
Cape Town is the legislative capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the country's second-largest city, after Johannesburg, and the largest in the Western Cape. The city is part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality.
Cape Agulhas is a rocky headland in Western Cape, South Africa. It is the geographic southern tip of Africa and the beginning of the traditional dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans according to the International Hydrographic Organization. It is approximately half a degree of latitude, or 55 kilometres (34 mi), further south than the Cape of Good Hope.
The African penguin, also known as Cape penguin or South African penguin, is a species of penguin confined to southern African waters. Like all penguins, it is flightless, with a streamlined body and wings stiffened and flattened into flippers for a marine habitat. Adults weigh an average of 2.2–3.5 kg (4.9–7.7 lb) and are 60–70 cm (24–28 in) tall. The species has distinctive pink patches of skin above the eyes and a black facial mask. The body's upper parts are black and sharply delineated from the white underparts, which are spotted and marked with a black band.
A Mediterranean climate, also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen as Cs, is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes. Such climates typically have dry summers and wet winters, with summer conditions ranging from warm to hot and winter conditions typically being mild to cool. These weather conditions are typically experienced in the majority of Mediterranean-climate regions and countries, but remain highly dependent on proximity to the ocean, altitude and geographical location.
Plettenberg Bay, nicknamed Plet or Plett, is the primary town of the Bitou Local Municipality in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. As of the census of 2001, there were 29,149 population. It was originally named Bahia Formosa by early Portuguese explorers and lies on South Africa's Garden Route 210 km from Port Elizabeth and about 600 km from Cape Town.
The Garden Route is a 300-kilometre (190 mi) stretch of the south-eastern coast of South Africa which extends from Witsand in the Western Cape to the border of Tsitsikamma Storms River in the Eastern Cape. The name comes from the verdant and ecologically diverse vegetation encountered here and the numerous estuaries and lakes dotted along the coast. It includes towns such as Witsand, Heidelberg, Riversdale, Stilbaai, Albertinia, Gouritsmond, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Mossel Bay, Oudtshoorn, Great Brak River, Little Brak River, Wilderness, Sedgefield and Nature's Valley; with George, the Garden Route's largest city and main administrative centre.
Overberg is a region in South Africa to the east of Cape Town beyond the Hottentots-Holland mountains. It lies along the Western Cape Province's south coast between the Cape Peninsula and the region known as the Garden Route in the east. The boundaries of the Overberg are the Hottentots-Holland mountains in the West; the Riviersonderend Mountains, part of the Cape Fold Belt, in the North; the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the South and the Breede River in the East.
Overstrand Municipality is a local municipality in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is located along the Atlantic coast between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas, within the Overberg District Municipality. The principal towns in the municipality are Hermanus, Gansbaai and Kleinmond. As of 2011, it had a population of 80,432.
False Bay is a body of water in the Atlantic Ocean between the mountainous Cape Peninsula and the Hottentots Holland Mountains in the extreme south-west of South Africa. The mouth of the bay faces south and is demarcated by Cape Point to the west and Cape Hangklip to the east. The north side of the bay is the low-lying Cape Flats, and the east side is the foot of the Hottentots Holland Mountains to Cape Hangklip which is at nearly the same latitude as Cape Point. In plan the bay is approximately square, being roughly the same extent from north to south as east to west, with the southern side open to the ocean. The seabed slopes gradually down from north to south, and is mostly fairly flat unconsolidated sediments. Much of the bay is off the coast of the City of Cape Town, and it includes part of the Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area and the whole of the Helderberg Marine Protected Area. The name "False Bay" was applied at least three hundred years ago by sailors returning from the east who confused Cape Point and Cape Hangklip, which are somewhat similar in profile when approached from the southeast.
Helderberg refers to a planning district of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality, the mountain after which it is named, a wine-producing area in the Western Cape province of South Africa, or a small census area in Somerset West.
De Hoop Nature Reserve is a nature reserve in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.
Pringle Bay is a small, affluent coastal village in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, in South Africa. It is situated at the foot of Hangklip, on the opposite side of False Bay from Cape Point. The town and surrounds are part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO Heritage Site. The bay is named after Rear-Admiral Thomas Pringle, of the Royal Navy, who commanded the naval station at the Cape in the late 1790s.
Caledon is a town in the Overberg region in the Western Cape province of South Africa, located about 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of Cape Town next to mineral-rich hot springs. As of 2011 it had a population of 13,020. It is located in, and the seat of, the Theewaterskloof Local Municipality.
Grabouw is a town located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Grabouw is located some 65 km south-east of Cape Town, over Sir Lowry's Pass from Somerset West, along the N2 highway.The town is the commercial centre for the vast Elgin Valley, the largest single export fruit-producing area in Southern Africa, which extends between the Hottentots-Holland, Kogelberg, Groenland, and Houwhoek Mountains. The town's population has grown rapidly, with 44 593 people in 2019 from 21 593 as listed by the 2001 census.
The Kogelberg is a range of mountains along the False Bay coast in the Western Cape of South Africa. They form part of the Cape Fold Belt, starting south of the Elgin valley and forming a steep coastal range as far as Kleinmond.
Kleinmond is a small coastal town in the Overberg region of the Western Cape province, South Africa. It is situated inside a UNESCO-declared biosphere about 90 km east of Cape Town between Betty's Bay and Hermanus. The town's name, meaning "small mouth" in Afrikaans, refers to its location at the mouth of the Bot River lagoon. Stone axe heads found in the area indicate that people already lived in the vicinity of nearby Hangklip 20,000 years ago. Information about the area has existed in writing since the seventeenth century.
Samson Gabriel Dyer aka Sampson Dyers was an African-American man noted for his association with Dyer Island off the Cape Agulhas coast of South Africa.
Rooiels is a settlement in Overberg District Municipality in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The name is often written as Rooi-Els, but the name of the township was registered as Rooiels. It was declared a township in June 1948, and is situated 5 km north of Pringle Bay, on the eastern shore of False Bay. It was named after the farm and river by this name.
Kogelberg Nature Reserve is a nature reserve of 3,000 ha comprising the Kogelberg Mountain Range, to the east of Cape Town, South Africa.
The Betty's Bay Marine Protected Area is part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve. It is about 29km south-east of Gordon's Bay and approximately 37km north-west of Hermanus on the south-western coast of the Western Cape. It is in the Atlantic Ocean immediately adjacent to the town of Betty's Bay, in the Overstrand Municipal area.