Paternoster

For the last few months I could not so much as make a glancing gesture towards the West Coast. Part of my trip without some one mentioning Paternoster. What I found strange was the fact that they did not tell me anything about the place. The just mentioned it. Like knowing that it is there cements their pedigree.

"I am heading down the West Coast soon."
"Oh, ja, Paternoster and those places, lovely......"
"Riiiiiiight....what's it like down/up there"
"Oh its wonderful."
"No he's right hey, it's stunning, you can't miss it."
"Okay... I won't miss it then; I will be back in a moment, I think I hear my beer calling me."
                -Actually Happened

 The responses I got were more vague than when guys asked my if I was a virgin at 17, or when my mother asks me what I did during the weekend. A part of me might have gone up the West Coast just to see what the bloody fuss was.

I got into the town, and realized that almost all of the brands that I had come to recognize in the little towns were absent. The houses were in the style I only get to see in naturally sepia photographs, taken back when beards were cultivated with love and white people constantly stressed about unruly natives attacking their farms. I drove to a beach that had all the makings of a phenomenal photoshoot -- in the hands of a better photographer of course. The boats were coming in, and the locals were tying their motor-less boats to bakkies as they were pulled along the beach. Again I felt like I was seeing something that had been kept out of reach by movies and other fictions that told you that things a like this happened in the world, but you will only ever see them from the comfort of your couch and by the whims of your television. I was jolted back into reality by ever passer by trying to sell me crayfish. I don't eat shellfish, so it was easy to dismiss them.

These guys kept trying to sell me crayfish

There is not a lot to tell people about Paternoster, I will admit that. Though there are definitely things worth telling. If you go to Tieties Baai there is a Light-House that gives you a panoramic view of the whole area. Tieties Baai got its name, not for the smooth rocks that resemble a certain part of a woman's body, but from a pastor who lived in Jacobs Baai, named Titus. He was fishing outside Paternoster and sadly drowned. The bay was named after him. In Afrikaans Titus is pronounced Tietus. After many years of oral history, Tietus became Tieties. There is also a must see restaurant called Seekombuise, but I will dedicate an entire article to that next.

So why do people remember this as the Beacon of the West Coast? It could be the architecture, the beaches, the working lighthouse, the suggestively named beach; or it could be the fact that the place looks like it does not need you to go there and look at it. It is a town that does what it does. It did it before you rocked up, and when you leave it will carry on. In a way it feels untampered with. So I guess I am going to fall in with the people that will tell you to go to Paternoster when next you head up the West Coast. At least I gave you a good reason.