December 2025/January 2026

On our way – but got stuck in deep (‘swaar’) sand

After months of preparing for our wild camping adventure along the West Coast of South Africa, the time finally arrived just after Christmas to pack our camping trailer and head for the sea.

It’s impossible to write about our 12-day adventure in just one post, so this is the first post of … well, a few. There will be stories and photos of:

  • Our wild camping set up,
  • Breathtaking natural scenery (those sunsets were magical),
  • Camp meals (yes, of course),
  • ‘Rissibiekie’ Padstal (a very interesting farm stall in the middle of nowhere with friendly people and the cutest little animal I’ve ever seen),
  • A glorious day of catching crayfish in the wild Atlantic Ocean,
  • Picturesque hikes on the beach
  • And much more

Background:

A few years ago, we’ve enjoyed wild camping near Groenriviermond (read here and here). This is a stretch of coastline where you can camp for free, however on our recent wild camping trip we decided to camp on the farm Waterval near Groenriviermond at a minimal fee. This meant that we were guaranteed a campsite. (For our English-speaking friends: ‘Waterval’ means ‘Waterfall’).

There are no facilities – as the term ‘wild camping’ suggests – and campers need to bring their own water, ablution facilities (shower & toilet), and firewood. However, we later found out that water (brackish water) is available on the farm, as well as firewood at Rissibiekie Padstal. Fresh drinking water is also available to buy at Rissibiekie Padstal and at the (only) small cash shop on Kotzesrus, which is a tiny village about 20km/12.4 miles from our campsite. (We will write more about this in a later post.)

But hey, enough of the small talk – we want to show you our campsite with a million-dollar view! But first, there’s a story – so, let’s get in the ‘bakkie’ and drive to Waterval!

Let’s go wild camping:

We left Langebaan bright and early because it’s about a 4–5-hour drive to Waterval and it takes time to properly set up a wild campsite. We also had to spent time at the last town (Lutzville) where we had to do a final trip to the shop and we also needed to fill our camping trailer’s 136-liter water tanks.

Leaving Langebaan in misty conditions

Fortunately, the sun quickly dispelled the early morning mist and we drove the rest of the journey in sunny weather.

Sunny weather – that’s more like it

Verlorenvlei – one of the largest natural wetlands along the West Coast

A (not so) quick visit:

Although we were quite eager to get to our campsite, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stop in Lamberts Bay to visit fellow Alexander Bay residents (where we grew up). When Berto was still an electrical apprentice in his early 20s, he worked under ‘Oom’ Kallie Smit. (We were taught by our parents to address anyone who was 10 years older than us as ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’. In Afrikaans ‘uncle’ means ‘oom’ and ‘aunt’ means ‘tannie’). Although we left Alexander Blay almost 30 years ago, the residents of this small diamond mine town still remain close to our hearts.

A ‘quick’ visit at the house of ‘Oom’ Kallie and ‘Tannie’ Alida in Lamberts Bay

We just wanted to quickly pop in, but there were so many stories to share and over coffee/tea and some tasty treats, we ended up spending more than an hour at their house (which was a blessing in disguise – yes, read on).

‘Tannie’ Alida made sure we didn’t leave empty-handed and packed some of her homemade Christmas fruitcake for us to take along on our wild camping trip.

Delicious homemade Christmas fruit cake

As mentioned earlier in the post, we stopped in Lutzville to buy fresh bread and also stock up on enough water. The two tanks (68 liters each) of the camping trailer were filled to capacity, as well as two extra 25-liter water containers in the back of the ‘bakkie’. We also had drinking water in two 10-liter containers.

When we left Lutzville, Berto mentioned that the ‘bakkie’ and camping trailer were now very heavily loaded, and we drove extra slowly and carefully on the gravel road to get safely to our campsite, which was about 115km/71 miles further.

Gravel road on our way to Waterval

Waterval has quite a few campsites. Ruitersvlei (campsites 1-24) is the southernmost campsite and Skulpbank (campsites 49-60) the northernmost. We booked a campsite at Skulpbank and on the way there we passed by several occupied campsites. It turned out that quite a lot of campers came to wrap up the year on the West Coast.

At one point we stopped, got out of our ‘bakkie’ and just breathed in the fresh sea air – it wasn’t that far anymore, maybe just another 20 minutes …

Our heavily loaded ‘bakkie’ and camping trailer

Crisis:

And then … just as we were going over a hill, we saw 3 vehicles parked next to the road. Berto slowed down and the next moment we were in deep sand and the ‘bakkie’ and camping trailer got stuck.

There is a sign next to the road warning of ‘swaar sand’ (which means deep/thick sand). We saw that too late and because the ‘bakkie’ and camping trailer were so heavily loaded we couldn’t really drive too fast.

No photos:

Unfortunately, there are no photos of this awkward situation we found ourselves in, so you’ll just have to use your imagination as I continue to tell the story.

The kindness of people:

As I mentioned earlier, there were quite a few vehicles parked next to the road. A group of young people were on the way back to their campsites after driving around for the day. Just before we arrived, they had helped another vehicle that got stuck in the deep sand. We could see they were tired, but without us asking, they immediately offered to help us.

Plan A, B, C & D:

Plan A: One of the young men brought his ‘bakkie’ closer and tried a few times to pull our ‘bakkie’ and camping trailer out of the deep sand. When that didn’t work, they detached the camping trailer from our ‘bakkie’ and then he was able to get our ‘bakkie’ out of the deep sand.

Plan B: With our ‘bakkie’ safely on solid ground, the young man reversed again and hitched our camping trailer to his ‘bakkie’. He hoped that his ‘bakkie’, without any luggage, would be able to tow the heavy trailer out of the deep sand, but the worst happened when he himself got stuck.

Plan C: Another man, who was with this group, then reversed his ‘bakkie’ to the back of our camping trailer and with a snatch strap, he got both the ‘bakkie’ and the camping trailer out of the deep sand.

Plan D: It was slightly good news that both our vehicles were now out of the deep sand, but there was a problem. Our ‘bakkie’ was now standing on one side of the deep sand and our camping trailer on the other side! The young man, the one who originally helped us, then reversed through the deep sand back to our camping trailer and hitched it to his ‘bakkie’ again. With a lot of power and speed he masterfully drove our camping trailer through the deep sand to our ‘bakkie’ waiting on the other side.

All the wives who stood next to the road (me included) jumped in the air and clapped our hands. What do you give to other people who help so selflessly? They wanted nothing in return, and in the end, we just sincerely thanked them.

Thank you:

We didn’t even ask for their names, but if anyone reading this, knows the group of young people who helped us on 26 December 2025, please tell them we are immensely grateful for their assistance. It’s thanks to them that we were finally able to make it safely (and before dark) to our campsite.

Back to our visit to ‘Oom’ Kallie and ‘Tannie’ Alida:

If we hadn’t stopped earlier in Lamberts Bay, we wouldn’t have had this amazing group of people along the road to help us when we got stuck in the deep sand. In hindsight, we were very happy that our short visit finally turned into a long visit – it was truly a blessing in disguise!

Gratitude:

I would have loved to show you our campsite now, but this post is already far too long. Let me just end with the sunset on our first evening. Looking at this incredibly beautiful sunset, we were grateful to a group of people we don’t even know, who helped us without batting an eye.

Our first sunset at Skulpbank, Waterval on the West Coast

Next week we’ll show you our wild camping setup (click here) – stay tuned, because there are a few surprises.