Solstice in West Coast National Park

Jersey Shore Solstice still life

It was a great place to spend the Summer Winter Solstice in South Africa. June 21 in the Northern Hemisphere is the longest day of the year. In the Southern Hemi, however, it is the shortest. But it still felt like summer at West Coast National Park north of Cape Town. Beautiful blue skies, bright sunshine. It was a great place to salute the sun on the Solstice. 

I brake for mermaids!

Signifying growth and life, the Solstice has a long history of being recognized as a critical event in the calendar, and many cultures have developed celebrations and rituals to coincide with it. Even though I have been in Scandinavia on the Solstice where the sun basically never sets at all, in the French Alps where bonfires rage on the Midsummer's Eve and once at Stonehenge where the Druids still welcome the rising sun on the Solstice with ceremony, I spent most Summer Solstices at the Jersey Shore worshiping the sun from the comfort of a beach chair.

Coney Island Mermaid Parade

Or I spent it at that other Solstice ritual in New York City ... the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Much more pagan than Stonehenge's celebration, let me tell you!

So naturally we were drawn back to another Atlantic Ocean beach for this year's Solstice.

South Africa's West Coast National Park is long and narrow and hugs the Atlantic coast from its southern gate below the Abramskraal Water Hole up to Langebaan Beach on Saldahna Bay.

After our explore, we were hungry! We stopped in Paternoster for some fresh seafood. Saldahna Bay oysters and Darling Cap Classique bubbly, seafood soup, mussels in cream sauce and snoek samosas.








The red-roofed Voorstrandt Restaurant is set in a historic 114 year old tin fisherman's cottage on the beach overlooking the endless sun in Paternoster.

Paternoster beach

That was a nice lunch!

Then off to our final stop of the day, the Cape Columbine Nature Reserve with its famous lighthouse.

Salutations to the Sun!