Wild Coast coastline

One of the trademarks of the coastline along the Wild Coast is rolling grassy hills that suddenly turn into vertical cliffs falling away to the ocean below. 

A perfect moring on the Wild Coast

You know when you've experienced something that you just want to share over and over again?  My Wild Coast trip was like that (heck, sometimes I feel every trip I go on is like that) and I wish I could transport you all to the day I spend at Wavecrest Hotel and getting up to a perfect windless morning.  Getting up just before sunset with not a ripple on the lagoon. Ahhh, absolute bliss.

Where did Coffee Bay get it's name?

Have you ever wondered where Coffee Bay got its name from?  Its not like the Wild Coast is a coffee growing area and beer is a lot more popular around there than coffee anyway.

 

Way back in 1893 on a...

this part of the story I don't know so I will give you a couple of options

 

1. dark stormy night

2. quiet fog covered morning

3. bright sunshine day (with the sun shining in the captain's eyes)

 

... a cargo ship with a load of coffee beans ran aground somewhere around the area.  The coffee beans washed up on the beach and surrounding coastline and some of them took root and started growing.  Unfortunately the salty soil and conditions is totally wrong for coffee and not much came of it.  The name did stick though.

 

The photo of the Coffee Bay coastline was taken from my room at Ocean View Hotel during a recent visit.

I experienced the Sliding Rock at Qunu

I got to slide down the sliding rock at Qunu where Madiba and his friends (as well as many local kids before and after him) played as children.  Some of you seem confused so let me explain. 

 

On a recent trip up the Wild Coast I stopped at the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu and was taken on a tour by one of the guides.  Part of the tour takes one about 200 meters away from the museum buildings to a couple of granite rocks on the side of the hill on which the museum is situated.  It was on these rocks that local kids, including Mandela himself, came to play.  Back then the kids would slide down the rock sitting on pieces of wood or whatever object they could find that would slide across the rock.  While walking down I wondered why the guide was carrying the plastic seat section of a chair (like the ones we used to sit on during assembly at school).  The answer came very quickly as he demonstrated before handing me the seat.  It was time to slide.  At first you wonder if you would actually be able to go down on the seat and the next moment you've got to throw out anchors cause that rock is a lot smoother than you think.  It may not be able to compete with "adrenalin activities" like zip lining or kloofing, but the experience is just as memorable because of where you do it.  I can imagine a couple of boys going home with bruised knees and toes after a day at the sliding rock though.

This is the Wild Coast

Doesn't this just shout out Wild Coast to you?  A winding dirt road, rolling hills dotted with huts and villages and a beautiful rugged coastline second to none.  If you have never been there to experience and see this for yourself, then you really must make a plan cause you are missing out.

The photo was taken on the road between Coffee Bay and Hole in the Wall.

  #experienceeastcape

Transkei landscape

 

The first time I traveled through the old Transkei in the Eastern Cape I could barely keep my eyes on the road.  The rolling hills covered in villages broken up by communal grazing for cattle, mielies fields and other vegetable patches just had me mesmerized.  For most travelling to the Wild Coast the actual coast is what it's all about.  For me the journey to get there is just as exciting 

The road through the Transkei

When people talk about the Eastern Cape, Wild Coast and Transkei then the road are always one of the first things mentioned. "The road is bad." "The road is full of potholes."  "The road this", "the road that" and "the road whatever".  I've never been further than just past East London and got to fly to Durban every time I had to go to Indaba.  The only time I drove to KwaZulu Natal I went via the Eastern Free State to avoid "this terrible road".  That was until May this year when I had to drive to Durban for the annual Tourism Indaba and decided to have a look at what the Transkei really looks like. 

What an absolute surprise.  The N2 main road through the Transkei isn't anything like what everybody have always said it was.  Makes me wonder how many of those people have been on it lately.  Yes the taxi's often drive just like they want, but they do it everywhere else as well.  Animals stray onto the road , its the Transkei after all.  But if you don't drive like an idiot then you can easily avoid them.  Umthata gets hectic with its speed bumps and peak hour traffic on a Friday afternoon.  Sit back and enjoy the song playing on the radio.  You can speed along shortly again.  The dirt roads and some secondary tar roads are in a bad condition, but the main road through the Transkei is anything but bad.  Big sections of the road have been fixed or totally overhauled with road works still taking place further north, but otherwise the road is in an excellent condition and well worth driving with its typical Transkei landscapes and scenes.  So next time you have to go from KZN towards the Port Elizabeth and Garden Route area (or vica versa), give the N2 through the Transkei a chance.  You won't be sorry.