Robberg Peninsula, Plettenberg Bay : Back to the Cretacious Period

A few miles south of Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route a peninsula surges about 2 miles out into the Indian Ocean. Robberg’s rocks date back to the early Cretacious period (130 million years ago) and the earliest break-up of Gondwanaland – a prehistoric super continent that split up into South America, Africa, Antartica, India and Australia about 120 millon years ago.

Walking out towards the Gap on Robberg Peninsula

When the sea levels dropped 120 million years ago this area was inhabited by Middle Stone Age people who stayed there until a period of freezing ice caps made the area uninhabitable. When temperatures became more temperate the Late Stone Age people occupied the area and lived in a large cave now known as Nelson Bay Cave. At that point the Cave did not sit as near the ocean as it does now. Grasslands stretched far into the present Indian Ocean, home to buck and buffalo.

Nelson Bay Cave, inhabited in the Late Stone Age, long before the sea level surrounded the peninsula.

The view directly outside of Nelson Bay Cave now.

The Portuguese navigator, Bartholomew Dias named the Robberg Peninsula – Cabo Talhado which means the steep cape, during his epic voyage to India from 1490 to 1495.