A room with a view of paradise available to all on the south coast of Africa

I recently had the opportunity to stay in this house and enjoy this particular view for a few days while on my eternal travels. What a pleasure to be able to see the sunrise over the distant Tsitsikamma Mountain range, as the distant peaks are called. This is on the south coast of Africa in the Western Cape province, in a region called the Eden District or the Garden Route. I presume the original settlers really saw the garden of Eden when they arrived here in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries.

The ocean is not visible from this view, though it is just to the right of the picture in the distance. We are a few miles inland but the coast is just a few minutes away by car. There are very few houses around and one can walk along these hilltops and into the vast open tracts of land. Also there are plenty of valleys as you can see, where dense vegetation basically makes it impassable. In other words we still have vast swathes of uninhabited and unexplored terrain, with farms dotted all around it. These hills and valleys are too awkward for local farmers to cultivate so they remain unused and are left to the indigenous vegetation.

As you can see, the house is designed and built ergonomically and with the idea of maximizing the visibility of the scenery all around. By building with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that wrap all around the front section of the main living area, one can get the full view, which really acts as a source of inspiration to the viewer. Also the vast amount of light that is available here in sunny South Africa is allowed to pour into the house via the extra windows, thus warming the place and keeping it pleasant and uplifting in mood.

I can understand how it must be challenging for those in the northern hemisphere regions like Europe to tolerate the annual winters, when there is so little light and as a result SAD can occur. That’s “seasonal affective disorder” a medical condition where one gets depressed in the winter due to the simple lack of light and sunshine. Here we have the opposite called HAPPY – “have a permanently pleasant year”.

From the wrap-around balcony or veranda, one can get a clearer view of the distant mountain range called Tsistikamma, with the highest peak just to the right, called Formosa Peak, named after the original name of the Plettenberg Bay - just further right out of shot. “Bahia Formosa” (Beautiful bay) was the original name given to the bay by the Portuguese sailors who passed by on their way to the East and India on their trade routes in around the sixteenth century. The highest mountain peak kept the name although the mountain range itself is now named in the traditional indigenous language of the first people here.

From here one can essentially walk into the wilderness bush and just keep walking for miles on end, into the interior. There is just so much remote space in and amongst these hills and valleys. Hundreds of years ago there would have been leopards, elephants and perhaps even lions roaming around here. You still get baboons of course, and buck, and there might still be some leopards, though they are more hidden now. Facing due east here, with the ocean just to the right along with the town of Plettenberg Bay, this is rightfully called the “Garden Route” region of South Africa. You can even still see elephants although they are kept in parks and reserves nearby just to the west for tourists to visit...if you’re lucky to get a sighting.

I will leave you with this last photo of sunrise in the east. The sun can be seen just popping up over the actual Formosa Peak itself, the highest peak in the Tsitsikamma Mountain range. This is an idyllic space to live generally, and this particular house itself is totally off the grid, with solar panels and rain water tanks to sustain the household throughout the year.

With all this space and vegetation around, as well as the fresh sea air, sunshine and rain water, the Garden Route, as this part of the coast is known, is certainly my top recommendation for anyone in the world to visit and perhaps settle, if you need to escape the difficulties that you might be facing elsewhere on the planet now.

The exchange rate is in your favor coming here and all the priceless perks of a quality life on earth await you. Let me know if you intend to arrive and I will be happy to show you around. Why should I be the only one basking in paradise?