Hermanus Whales Tour

Above the cove to the west of the Old Harbour at Hermanus there is a plaque marking the spring which attracted the first permanent resident, Hermanus Pieters, to what is now one of the most fashionable seaside and retirement resorts on the Cape coast. Pieters, a Hollander who came to the Cape early in the nineteenth century, was an itinerant teacher of Caledon farmers' children. He also had sheep and it was in moving them to fresh pastures that he came upon the enchanting bay-subsequently named after a Royal Naval officer called Walker - on which Hermanus was eventually established. The spring came to be known as Hermanuspietersfontein, a name which was also applied to the early settlement but shortened to Hermanus when municipal status was accorded in 1904.