My love for lighthouses and shipwrecks always seems to draw me to some of the most treacherous coastlines. Coastlines with their jagged reefs, mystical tales, and ghost stories. Here on the Southern Point of Walker Bay is the Peninsula known as Danger Point. It’s along this coastline that many an ocean farer had to face their fatal end and found a final resting place. Few other coastlines boast with the dubious reputation of claiming as many ships.
I was pleasantly surprised by the abundance of bird life as I walked along the narrow path towards the lighthouse. A mixture of fynbos and coastal birds foraging among the low tide shallows for fish, bugs, and lizzards and the sweet nectar of the Erica’s and other vegetation on the dune slopes.
Danger Point is the keeper of a few firsts.
Have you ever heard of the legendary ghost ship “The Flying Dutchman”? This is where it was first spotted.
And the Birkenhead?
This ship became famous because it was the first ship where the “women and children first” protocol was applied. 7 women and 13 children made it to safety, but most of the soldiers perished. An estimated 193 people survived of the 643 souls aboard.
In 1894 the Danger Point Lighthouse was built, 44 years after the Birkenhead met her doom on a rock just off the point.
It stands 18.3 meters tall, its revolving electrical light emits three flashes every 40 seconds, sending a warning signal out to anyone who dares to come to close to its looming shores.
This stretch of coastline is also home to the mollusc known as abalone and has been the casualty of one of the biggest raids on the endangered abalone as 130 poachers harvested thousands of abalone near Danger Point.
Sad, crazy but true.
Danger Point is accessible via Franskraal near Gansbaai
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