Noetzie

Description

"NOETZIE is one of those places that people remember...
For many it is because of the "castles", which have intrigued visitors over the years,
and the first question nearly every visitor asks is: "Who built them?"

Some seem a little disappointed to be told that the castles are no more than holiday
houses, and a few mischievous Noetzie residents, playing up to their curiosity, have
been known to spin them a yarn or two about the castles belonging to pirates,
smugglers and even to George Rex.

But what really makes Noetzie so special are not the castles, but its natural beauty,
much of which is still pristine - an increasing rarity in the brash hotel-&-hamburger-
stand culture which has ruined so much of South Africa's once splendid coastline.
The golden beach surrounded by forested hills, the dark waters of the lagoon, the
rugged ochre rocks and the thundering breakers that roll in row upon row.

Aware of Noetzie's natural riches, residents applied to the authorities to have it declared
a conservancy in order to protect and preserve it's natural bounty. In 1999, symbolically
celebrated as the last year of the millennium, Noetzie officially became a conservancy."

History

In the 1800s & even before then, the local people came to camp down at Noetzie.
The earliest maps call the area Noetziekamma. (Khoi-san word for dark water possibly
referring to the tannins leaching into the river from indigenous forested banks ).

Noetzie beach and lagoon has been an annual holiday site for the locals ever since we can remember. There was a rough old track down which the ox wagons would creak to the beach. The oxen would be let loose and would graze the dune vegetation while people caught fish abundantly, swam in the clean dark waters of the Noetzie lagoon and enjoyed the wilderness experience. Difficult steep access and the south facing aspect of Noetzie meant that Noetzie was left alone during the colder months. This is still true today, but may change in near future.

First ex- Millwood Cottages brought down by ox wagon in early1900s. The names of
some of the holiday cottages were 'Yellow Cottage', 'Helenside' and Lagoona. A few of them were owned by Oudtshoorn families like the Norths- owners of the Imperial Hotel
in Oudtshoorn, and a Mr. Strydom. Other families at Noetzie were the Metelerkamps and the Stroebel family. 5th and 7th generations of the same Knysna and Oudshoorn
families still holiday at Noetzie today.

Later on in the early thirties the first castles were built. The oldest castle, at the western end of the main beach, was built as a holiday house by Herbert Stephen Henderson,
who lived in what was then Southern Rhodesia. He built it in 1932 out of the natural
stone found at Noetzie. The story goes that he had no intention of building a "castle", but had simply used the local stone for practical reasons, when Rex Metelerkamp who was watching the building process, jokingly said to him: "All you need to do is to add a few turrets and you'll have a castle". And he did. That set the trend and he built Pezula on the hill in the late 1930s which was used in the 40s as a convalescent home for the RAF,
and was later sold to Garfield Todd, Prime Minister of Rhodesia and bought back in the 60s after his banishment from SA. In 1942 he built what has become known simply as "The Castle". His son built Montrose in the 1970s and the Lindsays built Perekuil in the 1960s.

During the apartheid era Noetzie, unlike other public places, remained non racial and was enjoyed by all.

Aware of Noetzie's natural riches, residents applied to the authorities to have it declared
a conservancy in order to protect and preserve it's natural bounty. In 1999, symbolically celebrated as the last year of the millennium, Noetzie officially became a conservancy.

In 2000 Keith Stewart's 'Fastpulse 72' bought 640 ha in and around Noetzie and began the process towards establishment of development of the remainder of Noetzie farm, now known as the Pezula Private Estate.