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The Sacramento Trail is an 8 kilometre, moderate yet popular one-way or circular route trail between Schoenmakerskop and Sardinia Bay. The trail traverses the Sardinia Bay Nature Reserve where you will see attractive seascapes, landscapes, and depending on the season, some remarkable displays of wild flowers. Gannets and dolphins can often be seen out at sea. Many wrecked ships, one the Portuguese galleon Sacramento, lie offshore and there is a bronze cannon from the ship on display at Schoenmakerskop. Horses are permitted on the trail, which involves an easy to moderate walk with some agility required over the rocks at Sardinia Bay, leading along the shoreline and returning over the high dunes. One-way it is 4 kilometre or 1½ hours and the round trip roughly around 3 hours however you can walk as much or as little of the trail as you wish.
Whilst in the midst of planning my long-overdue and customary annual Christmas trip to South Africa which I had been unable to undertake for the past three years due to international travel restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic, I decided to visit my friend of many years, Dorelle, after we had discussed it at length and she had very kindly extended an invitation. I consequently flew up between Christmas and New Year.
New Year’s Eve provided the perfect opportunity for a relatively easy walk along the Eastern Cape coast southwest of Port Elizabeth or Gqeberha, as it is now known. We set off late morning on a gloriously sunny day to the beachfront near Schoenmakerskop, where we parked. The Southern Tip of Africa is littered with the wrecks of over 140 ships that met their violent end along its tempestuous coastline. Thousands of lives and precious cargoes have been lost in its raging storms and ravenous waters. In 1647 the Portuguese galleon Sacramento ran aground between present day Schoenmakerskop and Sardinia Bay with 72 survivors reaching the beach and only nine making it all the way to Delagoa Bay (Maputo) in Mozambique, a distance of 1,300 km on foot.
The cargo included a massive consignment of artillery pieces meant for King João IV from the city of Macao (a Portuguese colony in China, at the time), along with silk, porcelain, and spices. The overladen vessel was smashed on the coast’s rocks and sank, whilst the cannon spent the next 300-odd years on the ocean floor until they were salvaged in 1977. Forty bronze cannons were brought up and one of those, a 2,500-kilogram (5,500-pound) artillery gun, nicknamed as the “miracle cannon” because it was so well preserved, is positioned in Schoenies at the start of the Sacramento Trail.
We stopped for a refreshing swim at a spot partially protected from the ocean currents, forming an almost natural rock pool known as Gibbons Pool, within sight of the huge sandunes at Sardinia Bay. It is a location where my friend Dorelle Sapere spent many a happy moment during her childhood and beyond, where her Italian father taught her to swim and indeed where her own son Rafael similarly learnt and acquired the skill. We ambled back along the shoreline, passing other walkers, some with their dogs. Given its close proximity to one of South Africa’s largest cities, the trail is surprisingly clean though debris from ocean-going vessels often washes ashore, polluting the coastline in the process.
We dropped in for tea and carrot cake at the Sacramento Restaurant on Marine Drive. To my great surprise, the waiter who served us was wearing a Borussia Dortmund replica football jersey – it was a delight to find a supporter of my favourite football club in such a distant location, illustrating how the game streches far and wide. As it turned out, I had a ticket for a BVB home game at the tail end of January. That evening we were invited for a sumptuous dinner at the home of Rory and Melissa Riordan, close friends of Dorelle’s.
On Monday 2nd January, 2023, the day of my brother Gordon’s birthday, Dorelle took me on nostalgic drive to the various homes she had lived in in Port Elizabeth, prior to moving to Walmer. We tried to find a tea-room open for the day and were almost on the point of giving up until we struck gold at Brioche Food & Coffee. Later we drove to Sardinia Bay, located at the far end of the Sacramento Trail. We climbed the huge sand dunes in the face of a strong south-easterly wind which blew the grains with such force that it stung our sensitive skin. We walked some distance on the soft, white sand. Lifeguard checkpoints set up on the beach suggested that any attempt to swim needed to be treated with caution, as the strong ocean tides posed a significant threat. We managed a quick dip before taking on the challenge of ascending the dune once more on our return to the car. On the way back we stopped at a garden nursery gift shop, where Dorelle very kindly treated me to an ice-cream cone. It was with some sadness that my visit of a few days came to an end and I later bade farewell to my friend and was dropped off at the airport later, for a 19h10 return flight back to Cape Town.
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