South Africa's post office tree

500 year old post office tree

Replica of the Caravel

It was a miserable day, and the rain had set in, so Matt and I decided to visit the Dias museum instead of the beach.

Here is just a little of what we learnt:

History of Mossel Bay

Bartolomeu Dias left Lisbon in 1487 with two caravels of 100 tonnes each.

He sailed along the coast of Africa. But due to bad weather, Dias sailed out into the open sea. As a result he overshot the Cape and rounded the southern tip of Africa without realising it. After sailing east to find the coast again, he had no luck. So he took a northerly course, and found land.

Finally he landed in a quiet cove in 1488, which he named "Aguada de São Bras" (watering place of Saint Blaize) later renamed Mossel Bay by the Dutch. For several years after the Portuguese used São Bras as a resting spot to take on fresh water and meat.

Post Office Tree

This story sounds like something out of a Terry Pratchett novel.

In 1501, another Portuguese navigator, Pedro d'Ataide, on his return journey from the east sought shelter in Mossel Bay after losing much of his fleet in a storm. He left an account of the disaster in a shoe under a milkwood tree near a spring. The report was found by the explorer - João da Nova - and thus the tree served as a kind of post office.

Since then, a boot-shaped post box has been erected under the now same Post Office Tree, and letters posted there are franked with a commemorative stamp. So this has become one of the town's biggest tourist attractions.

We posted a few postcards to Matt's parents.

Replica of Dias Bartolomeu's caravel


Mossel Bay's Maritime Museum, also within the Dias Museum Complex, houses a replica of the Caravel in which Bartolomeu Dias sailed into Mossel Bay. The replica was built for a voyage from Portugal to Mossel Bay in 1988 to commemorate the 500 year anniversary of the discovery of Mossel Bay and South Africa.