Fish Hoek - Geography and Climate

Geography and Climate

Fish Hoek is situated in a bay at the end of a broad, low valley, between two and three kilometres wide, which runs from east to west across the Cape Peninsula from Fish Hoek on the False Bay side to Noordhoek and Kommetjie on the Atlantic side. When sealevels were higher than they are today, the valley used to be a sea passage that separated the Cape Peninsula into northern and southern islands. The valley is generally sandy and the bedrock is Cape granite. In places this is deeply weathered and in the past the rotted granite was mined for pockets of the mineral kaolinite, which is used to make ceramic goods such as hand basins and bath tubs. The valley is famous for 12,000 year old paleolithic skeletons discovered in a cave (now called Peers' Cave) by Bertie Peers and his father in 1927. Bertie Peers was a lover and explorer of the great outdoors, a fine amateur scientist and a dedicated naturalist but his enthusiasm eventually cost him his life, when he was fatally struck by a puff adder.

Fish Hoek has a mild mediterranean climate and is spared over hot summer days by the south-easterly wind known locally as "the Cape Doctor". The mountains nearby are famous for large numbers of complex caves in sandstones of the Table Mountain Group. Caves are usually found in limestones and it is not common to find complex cave systems in pure sandstone.