Cape Town - When SANparks chief executive David Mabunda jokingly suggested to his staff that one way to attract visitors to the Agulhas National Park was to build the longest boardwalk on Earth, he didn’t think they took him seriously.
Mabunda was speaking during the launch of a 2.5km boardwalk that links the Cape Agulhas lighthouse to the southernmost tip of Africa – the point where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet.
It is about two-and-a-half hours from Cape Town.
SA National Parks has been redeveloping the Agulhas precinct for the past couple of years to attract more tourists to this part of the province.
In 2010 a new rest camp was opened in the park and Mabunda said this made him wonder about what else could be done to attract tourists and get them to spend their money in Cape Agulhas.
“There are no elephants or cheetahs here, but there is something wonderful which is God-given and that is open vistas, mountain ranges, fynbos and fynmense.
“Jokingly, I said why don’t we extend the (existing) boardwalk to make it the longest on Earth… Now we have done the boardwalk, it is not yet 50km but it is something to be reckoned with.”
Mabunda said Agulhas National Park was one of SANparks smallest parks, with only 20 permanent staff members.
The boardwalk, which cost R1.5 million to build, was funded by the provincial government.
Mabunda said that in addition to the 20 staff members the park had created 528 jobs through the government’s extended public works programme.
SANparks has already spent R41m on infrastructure development and has secured a further R40m which will be used over the next three years to extend the rest camp, upgrade accommodation for staff members, and to upgrade the historical homesteads in the area.
Cape Agulhas mayor Richard Mitchell said the developments that SANparks was busy with would help solve the municipality’s biggest challenge, which was to attract more visitors to the area.
Mitchell said some people still believed the two oceans met at Cape Point, “but the southernmost point is not in Cape Town but here in Agulhas. Agulhas is the door into Africa”.
He said he was looking forward to having tourists in the area and that current construction of tarred roads linking towns – including Bredasdorp to Elim, and Gansbaai to Baardskeerdersbos – would also help to make it easier for people to make their way to the southernmost tip of the continent.
Mitchell said what he liked most about the new boardwalk was that it made it easier for disabled people to move around the Agulhas precinct. - Cape Argus