Hamburg

Hamburg sits on the southern bank of the Keiskamma River, 3 km from its mouth on the Indian Ocean, 11 km south-east of Peddie and roughly 100 km south-west of East London. It was established in 1857 by members of the British-German Legion after the Crimean War — soldiers who had fought for Britain and were brought to the Cape Colony as settlers. They named it after Hamburg in Germany. The village occupies a narrow strip of land pinched between the Keiskamma River to the west and north, the estuary to the east, and the Indian Ocean to the south. On three sides, water. On the fourth, a dirt road out.

Hamburg has around 1,000 residents and almost no commercial infrastructure. There are no billboards, no fast-food outlets, no supermarket. Cows, goats, and chickens share the roads with the occasional car. The beach is on the doorstep of the village. The Keiskamma mouth is wide, tidal, and worth walking along. The whole setting is physically distinctive — a very small community on a narrow peninsula with an isolated, end-of-the-road feel.

What Hamburg is known for far beyond its size is the Keiskamma Art Project, founded in 2000 by Dr Carol Hofmeyr. It began as an HIV/AIDS treatment and poverty alleviation initiative using art as a medium. What came out of it was extraordinary: the 120-metre Keiskamma Tapestry, now in the entrance to the South African Parliament, made by over 100 previously unemployed women and telling the history of the Cape Frontier region. The project also produced a life-size embroidered version of Picasso's Guernica and a large altarpiece. Hamburg is on the map because of these women and what they made.

The Keiskamma Trust still operates in the village. It runs health programmes, education initiatives, and music projects alongside the art work. The combination of an isolated coastal setting and that level of creative output makes Hamburg a genuinely unusual place.