Danger Point Lighthouse

About Danger Point Lighthouse

It took roughly forty years after a major shipwreck on the coast at Gansbaai with a great loss of lives, for a lighthouse to finally emerge in 1895. A memorial plaque is on one of the walls of the lighthouse, in similar fashion to another plaque of the same wreck erected as a reminder in Arniston, just up the coast from here, to remind one of the Birkenhead, caught on a reef roughly a kilometre from Danger Point in 1852 in the wee hours of the morning.

No fewer than seven wrecks are today littered on the rocks beneath the lighthouse. The lighthouse stands at the tip of the peninsula overlooking the rock responsible for the wreck of the Birkenhead. The white octagonal tower with its red lantern dome has its original twelve glass dioptric panels preserved in the Hermanus Museum. It was initially painted with vertical red and white stripes.

When it was built, the lighthouse was regarded by lightkeepers as unpopular, lying over an hour's drive from Hermanus. But it was probaby more the inclement weather in these parts and the fact that today's popular seaside town of Gansbaai was little more than a fishing village that made it so.

A drive from Cape Town along the beautiful scenery of the R44 will take one via Betty's Bay and Hermanus to the town of Gansbaai, the lighthouse, roughly 10 kilometres to the south west of it, lies on a peninsular known as Danger Point. One can climb its steps for pretty spectacular views out over the ocean, whilst Gansbaai has a reputation for being one of the finest places to spot the big two - whales and great white sharks.