Velddrif 

When you take the R27 from Cape Town, about 140km on you will cross the Carinus Bridge into Velddrif and depending on your stay, you might become known as an ”oor-die-brugkommer”.

During your visit to this traditional vissersdorp, the wind might be blowing with its typical smell, the mist might be thick and wet, but it might also be sunny feel-good days to spend hours on and next to the waters. Relaxing days to explore Bokkomlaan, the harbour, have fish and chips with the locals and then watch the cormorants flying home along the water with sunset. You might decide not to return, but when you do, you will find the locals' hospitality always the same, tranquillity in every daybreak and sunset and the call of the birds never-ending.

In the early 1700's word got out in the Cape of the abundance of fish in St Helena Bay and fishing, shipping and farming businesses started around the mouth of the Berg River. The harbour was named Laaiplek (Loading Place) where the ships could enter and navigate a few km upstream. The village of Velddrif settled about 2km up the river where a farmer, Theunis Smit, used to take his cattle across the river for grazing, hence the name “Fields Crossing”. In 1899 a Pont was build to ferry people and cattle across and in 1959 the Carinus Bridge was finished, resulting in the growing of Laaiplek and Velddrif. Velddrif then became a municipality in 1960.

The fish industry grew with the fish canning factories and other fish products at the Laaiplek Harbour while in Velddrif in Bokkomlaan the drying of harders is still done the same traditional way, making the smell and taste of the bokkoms a unique tourist attraction to Bokkomlaan and its historical little fish buildings. There you can enjoy a breakfast on a jetty, buy fresh snoek, feed some pelicans, have a trendy cup of coffee or tea on a wooden bench watching the river flows by.