Plettenberg Bay History

Plettenberg Bay is the jewel of the Garden Route. It's more than a village, less than a town. Plettenberg Bay is tranquil and charming, hospitable and rather special. Originally christened "Bahia Formosa" (beautiful bay) by early Portuguese explorers, Plettenberg Bay can now be accessed by first class national roads, by sea or by scheduled air flights.

Plettenberg Bay is characterized by sweeping, unspoilt golden beaches, a dramatic rocky peninsula, intriguing lagoons and estuaries, towering indigenous forests and unpolluted rivers and sea. With its exceptional climate, and beautiful view sites over the Indian Ocean, Plettenberg Bay is perfect for tourists interested in exploring, watching or just lazing.

Archaeological findings in Nelson's Bay Cave and Matjes River Cave indicated that these caves were inhabited for over 100000 years by Middle Stone Age man and then later by ancestors of the Khoisan. The Khoisan (Khoikhoin) was possibly the same people who traded with the Portuguese survivors of the San Gonzales wreck. Deposits of their tools, ornaments and food debris can be viewed in these caves, which are still being excavated. One can also observe the geological changes over the past millions of years which affected prehistoric life.

Long before van Riebeek landed at the Cape, Portuguese explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries called in and charted the bay, the first being Bartholomew Dias in 1487. Ninety years later Manuel da Perestrello aptly called it Bahia Formosa or the Bay Beautiful. The first white inhabitants were the 100 men stranded here for 9 months when the San Gonzales sank in 1630. In 1763 the first white settlers in the Bay were stock farmers, hunters and frontiersmen from the Western Cape.

The Swede, Carl Peter Thunberg, was the first to document valuable observations on the bay and the Robberg. The Governor of the Cape, Baron Joachim van Plettenberg, renamed the town Plettenberg Bay in 1779. In 1787 a woodcutter's post was established and Johann Jacob Jerling was commissioned by the Dutch East India Co. to build a storehouse for timber, which was first exported in 1788. The timber trade grew leading to Thomas Bain building Prince Alfred Pass (1868) and the 90km forest road through the Tsitsikamma to Humansdorp. Three major passes had to be constructed: Groot Rivier, Blauwkrantz and Storms River. The entire road was complete 16 years later in 1885. In 1910 Captain Sinclair set up the whaling station on Beacon Island to harvest the placid Southern Right whales but this ceased operation in 1916. The first hotel was erected by Hugh Owen in 1940 and replaced in 1972 by the current well-known landmark on Beacon Island.