Story highlights
Bathurst is a creative community of artists, musicians and academics
The town's quirky venues include a giant pineapple building and an agricultural museum
Pig and Whistle is South Africa's oldest pub
It’s a village not a town.
So say residents of Bathurst, a magnet for the creative and curious located in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, approximately 12 kilometers from Port Alfred.
Residents are proud of the eccentricity of their town.
Or village.
“You’ve got to have certain things to be a town, like a bank and full-time doctor, and we don’t have any of that,” says one longtime resident who gives her name only as Mrs. Lens.
What Bathurst does have is a history dating to the early 1820s, a long and entertaining main street and a pub with delicious food that’s also a motel.
The best time to visit is Sunday morning, for the weekly farmers market.
But there are other attractions – starting with these.
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