A Word From The Owner
- Geoff Read
As a child and a teenager, I often sat on Picnic Rock watching the sun setting over Robberg, the moon rising in
the east and later the southern cross appearing, pointing towards the Antarctic and the massive expanse
of water between us and the Antarctic”
I have wondered at the minute spawning fish in the Matjies River. I have observed bushbuck on the beach, Knysna Loeries in the forest immediately behind, eagles soaring above the cliffs and, looking towards the ocean, Malgas feeding on sardines. I know of nowhere else where there are four distinct ecotones within a couple of a hundred metres, i.e. the beach, the dune vegetation, the forest and the fynbos.
My special place at Keurbooms is across the Matjies River near Arch Rock where I can look back at the beach, the forest and the rock shelter in the cliffs above, discovered by my grandmother, Corrie, where people have lived for hundreds of thousands of years, since the mists of time.
It is here I know that my own father proposed to his wife… where Ben proposed to my daughter, Olivia… where I have laughed… where I have cried… where I have loved and where I have cursed, but most of all, where I have lived.
I have a piece of paper that says I own this piece of land. This is absurd! I have no more claim nor right than the periwinkle burrowing in the sand or the spawning cape salmon in the river or the magnificent yellow wood in the forest, the crested eagle soaring above the cliffs or the heather and watsonias in the fynbos behind.
This place makes me realise how infinitesimally small each individual is in terms of nature and in terms of our planet and universe. And yet… it is a place of renewal… a place of realisation that life is indeed both beautiful and precious.
