Moving to Hermanus

Life in Hermanus: Whales, fynbos and a ninety-minute drive to the city

Hermanus is the Overberg's main town, and most of what makes it attractive follows from that. It has the private hospital, the widest choice of schools on this stretch of coast, the shops people from the surrounding villages drive in for, and enough of an economy that not everyone who lives here is retired or working remotely. It is the option you choose when you want the coast without giving up the things a family actually needs during the week.

It sits between the Kleinrivier mountains and Walker Bay, ninety minutes from Cape Town on the N2 or rather more slowly and far more beautifully along the coast. The cliff path runs the length of the town and is the thing residents use most — twelve kilometres of it, free, and busy at six in the morning. Fernkloof Nature Reserve climbs into the mountains behind, and the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley begins about five minutes inland, which is the reason the restaurant scene is better than a town this size would otherwise support.

The trade is price and December. Hermanus is the most expensive place in the Overberg to buy, which is precisely why families who have priced up Onrus and Sandbaai start looking at Kleinmond and Stanford. And for roughly six weeks over the holidays the town fills — Main Road backs up, restaurants need booking, and the beach you had to yourself in June is not yours in January. Most residents plan around it rather than resent it, but nobody warns you the first year.

Key Highlights of the Hermanus Lifestyle

• The whale watching is not a tourist claim. Southern right whales are in Walker Bay from roughly June to December, peaking in September and October, and you watch them from the cliff path rather than a boat. It is one of the best land-based whale sites anywhere, and it is a five-minute walk from most of town.
• It has the infrastructure the rest of the Overberg drives to. A private hospital, fibre, and both public and independent schools from pre-primary through to matric. This is the practical reason families choose Hermanus over the smaller villages along the coast.
• The suburbs are genuinely different from one another. Onrus and Vermont are quieter and more surf-oriented, Sandbaai is closest to the shops and the easiest school run, Eastcliff and Kwaaiwater are the pricier coastal end. Drive the school run at the real hour before you commit — it is a small town and it still catches people out.
• Everything else is close enough. Hemel-en-Aarde wine route five minutes inland, Stanford twenty, Kleinmond and the Kogelberg half an hour west, Cape Town in ninety minutes when you need an airport or a specialist.