Bloubergstrand

This guide to Bloubergstrand beach near Cape Town opens at dawn on 8 January 1806, when a boatload of Highland soldiers capsized in the surf before a shot was fired. It follows Sir David Baird's British invasion fleet and General Jan Willem Janssens's scratch Batavian force of Dutch, German, French, Khoikhoi and Javanese troops drawn up beneath Blaauwberg hill. The mountain still rises behind the beach today, over the same plain where that force formed its line.