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Melkbosstrand (Afrikaans for "Milkbush beach") is a coastal village and beach located on the South West Coast of South Africa, 35 km north of Cape Town. Named after the species of Euphorbiaceae bushes which grow on the dunes and give off a milky latex like substance, it is commonly referred to simply as Melkbos. The town and its 7 km stretch of white sand beach is situated on the Atlantic coast with the Blouberg mountain to the east. The beach is popular with surfers. It is notable for being one of the landing points for the South Africa-Far East and South Atlantic/West Africa submarine cable systems. Melkbosstrand is along the Atlantic Seaboard the Northern most suburb of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality within which it became incorporated when metropolitan boundaries were redrawn, following the advent of democracy in 1994. Its nearest neighboring towns are Bloubergstrand to the South (also a suburb of Cape Town) and the Municipality of Atlantis to the North-East. Melkbos is protected from urban development owing to its location in an expansive nature conservation zone to the South, insulating it from the Bloubergstrand sprawl, and the security buffer zones of Koeberg nuclear power station to the North. It remains a pristine seaside resort. ==History== Melkbosstrand (previously known as Losperd's Bay) (meaning, in old Dutch: the Bay of Lost Horses) is the site of the famous Battle of Blaauwberg (1806) whereby the Cape ceased to be occupied by French-Batavian troops and became a Colony of the British Crown.〔(Military History Journal ) (South African Military History Society) Vol 13 No 4 - Dec 2005〕 The French had occupied the Cape from 1781-1783, after a fleet under the flag of celebrated admiral Bailli de Suffren anchored just north of Melkbosstrand.〔Andrew Smith, ''The French Period at the Cape, 1781-1783'', Military History Journal Vol 5 No 3, June 1981〕 A cannon set on Melkbosstrand foreshore commemorates the battle itself. Numerous shipwrecks, some dating back to the Portuguese Discoverers of the Early Renaissance, are strewn along the coast of Melkbosstrand.〔See Lawrence G. Green, the great raconteur of the Cape: ''So Few Are Free'', Cape Town: Howard B. Timmins, 1946, I, 4.〕 Ancient Khoi-San middens and stone-age archeological findings have provided research with numerous artifacts.〔Alan G. Morris, "Trauma and Violence in the Later Stone Age in Southern Africa", June 2012, Vol. 102, No. 6 SAMJ〕 In terms of Colonial, Dutch vernacular architecture, the area boasts several fine examples. The farmhouse Melkbosch, the first established by the Dutch East India Company outside Cape Town, is still extant albeit in a rather poor condition following a fire. On Melkbos bay itself, much favored by the surfing community for its good swell and warmer currents, stands the (Damhuis ) cottage (now a beach restaurant), a late 18th-century fisherman house and the last one of its kind in the area (apart from Ons Huisie, at Blouberg Beach, some five kilometers away).〔http://www.blaauwberg.net/history/historical_sights.php〕 In 1961, Melkbosstrand became the end point for the SAT-1 Copper cable between South Africa and Sesimbra, Portugal. In 1992, the cable was replaced by the SAT-2 fiber optic cable. Today, Melkbosstrand is still the landing point for the SAT-3/WASS undersea cable system. It owes much of its present day infrastructure to two significant South African apartheid government developments in the late seventies. The first, Koeberg nuclear power station, constructed with the help of the British and French some 6 km north of Melkbosstrand, necessitated the creation of high quality housing for the foreign contractors. The second, the government subsidized creation of Atlantis Diesel Engines (ADE), a joint venture between the British Perkins-Elmer and famous brand German Daimler AG, to bypass international sanctions imposed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 418. Although ADE was in the industrial park of Atlantis, some 50 km north of Cape Town, subsidized housing was established in Melkbosstrand to help attract and retain the many German, British, and even South African, engineers, managers, and technicians. These houses, both for Koeberg and ADE, have long since been sold off to the public and form an interesting housing development with paved lanes, quaint housing, a club and a library, not un-reminiscent of the famed British series The Prisoner. Melkbos features in Deon Meyer's best-selling crime novel ''7 Days'' (''7 Dae'' in Afrikaans original) (2012) as the place where mad sniper, cop-killer, Solomon buys spray paint for camouflage. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Melkbosstrand」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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