Wild Coast Beach Life

We have spent the last week traveling down the Wild Coast of South Africa at quite a leisurely pace….enjoying the scenery, seafood and surf.

But I think we left off in Pietermaritzburg….a stopover on the way to the coast. Before hitting the Wild Coast, we passed through Durban and the more populated, vacation destination of the South Coast. Originally we were going to stay a day in Durban, but we heard way too many stories of muggings in the city, and all it is is a big city, so we decided to pass through. We had heard nice things about the big market there and a popular local dish called bunny chow, so we talked ourselves into stopping for just an hour or so to check out the market and have lunch. Well, I think we have been thoroughly spoiled by the beautiful markets of SE Asia. This market was fine, and granted it was Sunday so it was a bit shut down, but it just doesn’t compare to the sights, sounds and smells of an Asian market. Nevertheless we bought a curio or two, had a bowl of bunny chow (a big chunk of bread with a hole carved out of the middle which is then filled with curry). We were nervous the whole time about the Land Rover parked on the street (it stands out slightly in these cities), but we made it unscathed and were off to the coast.

The coastline north and south of Durban is a huge vacation/weekend destination for locals, and is consequently quite developed. We skipped the northern beaches and pushed on south for about 50 more km finally stopping for the night in Scottsburg. There aren’t any national parks here, so we had to settle on a very crowded/commercial caravan park, that had thankfully sort of emptied out as the school holiday is finally coming to a close. This caravan park acts as a bit of a retirement village in the winter. Half of the place was taken up by senior citizens that have set up quite impressive camps with no intent of leaving for the next 4 months or so. Our neighbor for the night was quite the friendly chap and gave up plenty of advice and his opinions about South Africa.

Upon reading our guidebook, we discovered that one of the top ten dive sites in the world (according to who, we are not sure) is right off the coast where we are camped. It is called Aliwal Shoal and is famous for its shark sightings, specifically the ‘Raggie’. So the next morning we decided very last minute to go ahead and do one dive. It was OK, but the current was really kicking and the group was a bit too big, so we spent more time fighting the current in order to stay with the group than being able to truly enjoy the dive. No sharks, but did see a turtle and an electric ray.

The next two days were mostly just driving days to get us to the start of the Wild Coast. The Wild Coast, also known as the Transkei, is 200 km stretch of coastline along the southern part of the Eastern Cape. It is deemed ‘Wild’ for its inaccessibility and rough coastline. While there are more dirt roads and the towns are quite a bit more remote, calling it Wild might be a stretch as it all becomes more and more developed and as roads get paved. Nevertheless, the villages are lovely, rural and peaceful. We thoroughly enjoyed our time exploring the area.

Here we are on one of our many short treks around the coast. This one in Mpande.


The first stop was in Port St Johns where we again stayed at a local campground. This time a much more peaceful and less crowded one. We took a walk up the bluff/hill/mountain overlooking the coast, and took a short walk through a very small nature reserve where we had beautiful coastal views and spotted two zebra. From there we moved on to a very small village called Mpande. There is one backpackers there called the Kraal, and is a very remote, eco-friendly, laid back kind of place. No electricity and stunning views of the bay. Right from the front deck of the main building we could look out at the bay and watch heaps of dolphins playing and surfing. Apparently there were whales out there too, but we never saw them. We spent three very relaxed days there where we bought crayfish from the local fishermen and cooked fabulous dinners, took many walks on and around the beach, canoed up the river/lagoon in a leaky boat, tried to surf for about 10 minutes (too cold and we didn’t have a clue what we were doing), and took a horse ride to a waterfall. We got hit with a cold front and a big rain storm while we were there, so it was a good time to just chill out for a while.

Not a bad campsite, eh? This is at the Kraal. We spent most of our time in the backpacker itself, and really only slept up here in the Rover:


Our next jump south was to Coffee Bay, named after a ship carrying coffee wrecked. The coffee trees grew for a while here, but have long since died out. We took the back roads here, which were all dirt, but still quite well maintained and only got a little lost. We stayed at a fantastic backpackers called the Coffee Shack. We still camped (i.e. slept in the Land Rover), but had use of really top notch kitchen facilities, and were able to take advantage of all of the free things on offer. One of which was a free surf lesson. It is amazing what the right equipment and instruction can do for your attitude about a sport. Not to say that we can surf now, but after 1 hour of instruction we were at least able to both stand up a handful of times (granted, it was a very big board and the waves were small).

Here is a look at what most of the villagers' homes look like. The people of the Wild Coast are Xhosa and their language (one of the 11 official languages of Africa!) includes that famous clicking sound. Pretty cool to listen to.


Our second day there we took a drive out to the famous “Hole in the Rock” and had another unfortunate incident with shoes. What is it with shoes in Africa? Upon arrival to Hole in the Rock, we had two kids approach us: one wanted to guide us to the sight and the other to watch our car. This is very typical of any tourist spot and usually works well. The kid watches the car and you pay him a couple of Rand when you get back. We said no thanks to the guide, told them they could both watch our car for us while we were gone, wanting to do something to help these guys out. Keith had tied a pair of shoes to the roof, as they were quite wet from the previous night's rain. He thought about putting them back in the car, but thought, nah...we’ve got these guys looking after the car. So we scramble up a bluff, and Keith glances back at the car and sees someone on top of it! So he runs back to the car, and lo and behold, finds his shoes gone. One of the boys is gone now, but his shoes are there, and the other kid denies seeing anything at all and suddenly can’t speak any English. We tried our best to scare them into confessing (threatening to call the police and getting as many people from the village involved), but they were steadfast in their denials. Keith found the other kid guiltily coming out of the bushes and thrashed around in there a bit trying to see where he hid Keith’s shoes, but we couldn’t come up with them. We finally left with a very bad taste in our mouths. It’s not even the shoes. Keith had bought a different pair a while ago, and this was just a cheap Bangkok pair that he didn’t even like. The problem is that these kids know it is no big deal for us to replace them, but they don’t realize the longer term impact it has on their village and our perception of it and how it shapes how we behave towards locals in the future. If you can’t trust the guy you are paying to watch your car, who can you trust?

The Hole in the Rock. Pretty self explanatory.


Scenery around Hole in the Rock:


From Coffee Bay we took a larger jump down the coast to the near end of the Wild Coast to another very well equipped and well run backpackers in Cintsa called Buccaneers. More of the same beach stuff and another horse ride, this time running along the beach, which was great fun.

Us with our horses in Cintsa:


We got to 'swim' with the horses as we crossed back over the lagoon back to the fields:



It is truly beautiful scenery along this coast, and you could easily get lost along here, but we decided it was time to shake things up a bit, so now we are heading inland again. We’ll spend a couple days back in the mountains where apparently they just had Christmas in July (snow!)…..maybe it’s time to splurge on a real room and take a break from sleeping in the Rover, i.e it’s cold up there!