The astonishing wildlife around the Table Mountain

The sea determines the life rhythm of the area between Table Mountain and Table Bay: In Cape Town penguins are reared by hand and sardines are driven in swarms from land into nets. Shark watchers sound the alarm when a “Great White” appears near to the beach. Then, surfers exchange their surfboards for longboards and speed down the steep coastal strip on wheels.

Cape Town, once a small trading post in the Atlantic, halfway between India and Europe, quickly developed into a pulsating harbour metropolis. Even today, South Africans refer to their dream town at the Cape as “Mother City”. Via the world famous coastal road Chapman’s Peak Drive, one can reach Hout Bay. The small community in the south has a huge problem: a gigantic sand dune! It’s getting bigger and bigger and is growing into the town itself.

The public toilets and the police station have been crushed beneath the masses of sand already. Now the bus-stop is in danger of being “eaten”, too. The citizens of Hout Bay call the threatening dune “Frankenstein”. Amy Davison from the Ministry of Environment has a plan: “Kill Frankenstein!” – she wants to attack the sandy monster with excavators and shovels.