A village with a view – Knysna’s Brenton

Named after, Sir Jaheel Brenton, the British admiral who opened Knysna harbour, Brenton might make the admiral turn in his grave. Fragile and beautiful like a butterfly’s wing it’s about lazy days,
fun and frivolity. Robyn Daly sloped off there and was transfixed by the view.

Everybody wants a sea view; it’s a desire, a craving, a drug, an addiction. And it’s taken at any cost. That pretty much sums up the coastal Garden Route and little towns such as Wilderness, Herald’s Bay, Glentana, Knysna, Victoria Bay, Plett…. Brenton is no different, except perhaps it is honest about it. The houses there unashamedly crane their necks to get a look in on the ocean. If they could be floating right on the sea, they probably would.

All this is great news for visitors and sea gazers – just about any B&B you choose has an astonishing lookout. And great news for domestic workers who are gainfully employed cleaning salt spray off windows the size of cinema screens. But, strangely, it’s done nothing for the aesthetics of the place and – at the risk of venturing an opinion which is sure to get me on the Brenton architectural society’s hit list – the little hamlet is spoiled by some very strange ideas of what is beautiful and fitting for a place of such fragile beauty.

The Brenton on Sea Hotel is an exception. There you’ll find sea views aplenty (and among the best there is) and the hotel, though built in stages and sprawling up the hillside, has a friendly, congenial look about it.

So what’s there to do in a little place like Brenton? You don’t need to venture further than the hotel pub really. It has a wooden deck frequented by locals, tourists and seagulls for its super view and it would be no great shame to while away an entire holiday there. You can wander down to the beach; there are rock pools, great swimming, sand enough to build a sandcastle the size of Buckingham Palace as well as rock and surf fishing from a tidy little ‘island’ of rock accessible on foot at low tide.

If you are nature wise, this is the home of the rare Brenton blue butterfly, which emerges from its cocoon at the beginning of summer. There are also a number of breeding pairs of black oystercatchers resident.

And if you’re really feeling active, you can walk the length of the three-kilometre-long beach. Alternatively there’s a great view from the cabins, comfortable deck chairs….