The good, the bad and the ugly of the Wild Coast

The Wild Coast has always been one of those within reach yet just a tad too far away destinations for me.  Living in Port Elizabeth I have travelled down the Garden Route and through the western part of the Eastern Cape quite extensively, but the Great Kei River beyond East London was like a hurdle I just didn't get to cross that easily.  That was until I planned a short Wild Coast road trip as part of a journey to Durban.  After my experience I have to say the title of this post should actually be the good, beautiful, good, scenic, good, lekker, good, awesome and a little bit of bad and ugly of the Wild Coast.  Please don't stare yourself blind against the bad and ugly and crucify me for mentioning it.  The only reason I put it in here is to let people know to expect it and not to try and put them off.  In actual fact, the reason for this post is the total opposite.  I want people to go and experience the Wild Coast like I did.  So lets get going.     

After a Monday morning meeting in East London I pointed the Polo up the N2 to Butterworth from where the road took me south to Kentani.  That was where I hit my first dirt road which was the first bit of ugly of the trip.  The ugly quickly gets neutralised though by the rolling hills covered in villages, friendly people waving and unusual scenes you just don't get to encounter in the city.  Just keep an eye on the road and make sure you bob and weave around the potholes and you will be okay.

 

The Wild Coast is literally one big surprise after another and arriving at Wavecrest Beach Hotelwas no different. WOW! with capitals and an exclamation mark at the end.  Wavecrest  is situated on the banks of a lagoon (and a stone's throw from the river mouth) where the Inxaxo and Ngqusi Rivers flow together and immediately became one of my favorite Wild Coast locations.  A very friendly receptionist greeted me at arrival and after checking me in took me on a tour of the hotel and facilities... in her slippers.  At first I thought it very strange but then I realized that it was the first sign of how laidback the place really is. 

 

I dropped my bags in my rondavel, changed into shorts and slops and headed down to the river where I grabbed one of the hotel's kayaks and paddled out onto the lagoon.  Which way to go? Up the Inxaxo or the Ngqusi? What the heck! Why not do both?  It wasn't long before I found myself between the mangroves with the only sounds being the distant ocean and a couple of pied kingfishers dive bombing into the water around me.  What more do you want?  Before I knew it the sun was starting to head towards the horizon and I had to start paddling my way back to the hotel while making a mental note that I will have to come and do this again properly at some stage.

 

Back at the hotel I decided to explore a bit and discovered that the hotel has 30 units ranging from doubles to family units all either garden or river / sea facing.  The hotel also have various public areas including a full snooker table games room, TV "cinema", lounge and bar area.  I grabbed a ice cold Savanna from the bar and found myself a spot with a view out on the verandah to wait for dinner time.  It was here that I met the hotel's general manager taking a stroll around.  Guess what?  He was also in his slippers.  Take that suite and tie people!  Like so many of the other Wild Coast hotels Wavecrest offers an extensive dinner buffet.  As it was midweek and midterm there weren't a lot of guests in-house yet the selection of food on the buffet was still way more than what I could try out.    

 

Hitting the tar I was on my way at full tilt again with the next stop being Qunu.  Qunu is where former president Nelson Mandela grew up as a young boy, with his birthplace at Mvezo not far away.  It is also where Madiba's family home is and you pass the homestead on the right just before getting to Qunu. 

 

I have never been to the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu and decided to stop for a quick look.  I wasn't quite planning to do the tour but changed my mind when I was met at the entrance by one of the guides.  Unfortunately I'm going to lie to you if I didn't say I was slightly disappointed.  They can really do so much more with the museum and what they have on display.  Most of the museum's exhibits are nothing more than a few photographs with information on the walls in two rooms that visitors have to read.  I was expecting more things associated with Mandela like I have seen in the Mandela exhibit in the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg recently.  But on to the rest of the tour.  The view from the museum stretches for miles and the guide pointed out a few places of note.  We then took a walk away from the buildings down to the sliding rock.  The sliding rock is where Mandela and the boys from the village came to play.  They would slide down the rocks and there are a few spots where you can see the rock has been smoothed over the years with all the boys going down.  Definitely the highlight of my visit was going down there myself.  But more of that in another post soon.  The museum does offers guided tours to all the significant Mandela sites in the area and if you have time, doing that would be worth a lot more than just visiting the museum.

 

Next stop...  Ocean View Hotel in Coffee Bay.  Driving into Coffee Bay after negotiating another stretch of potholed dirt road, I was slightly bummed.  I was expecting this quaint little village on the coast, something like Wilderness on the Garden Route.  It didn't quite look like the picture I had in my head.  Don't ask me why I thought that.  You just sometimes tend to imagine something a certain way it Coffee Bay wasn't what I imagined.  The village quickly took me by the shoulders and shook me awake though, showing me a place with character.  Various characters actually. Quirky characters, quant spots to eat and drink, friendly people and more stunning scenery.  Didn't take long for me to create a new picture in my head and disappointment quickly took a walk out to sea and disappeared under the waves.

 

Unfortunately part of disappointment returned to me shortly later.  After checking into the hotel I decided that I had to go and see the Hole in the Wall.  How can I say I have been to the Wild Coast and am an expert on the Eastern Cape without having visited Hole in the Wall?  I asked for directions at the hotel and I can't say the receptionist didn't warn me about the road, but shortly later I was heading along a dirt road down the coast to the holy grail of Wild Coast attractions.  This is unfortunately where I encountered the real ugly of the Wild Coast.  Not just one ugly.  More like two ugly step sisters causing a lot of harm to the beauty everybody wants to see.  Firstly there was the road.  Parts of it made the general potholed dirt roads looks like a smooth as glass tar road.  Going down two of the hills en-route I had to literally get out my car to find the best route through the dongas.  When I finally negotiated my way along to the grassy parking area, the ugliest of the two step sisters stepped up.  I was suddenly swamped by informal guides wanting to look after my car and "guide" me to Hole in the Wall. "Its only 10 minutes walk mister," one told me.  "I'll take you and will show you."  No, I didn't want him to take me or show me.  In actual fact, I felt intimidated.  I also didn't feel comfortable leaving my car with the lot around and decided that I didn't have to see the Hole in the Wall to be able to say I experienced the Wild Coast.  I turned around and negotiated my way back through the dongas, snapping the picture above with the Hole in the Wall just visible in the distance.  I promote the Eastern Cape and thus also the Wild Coast every day.  When it comes to the Hole in the Wall though I will now in future change my angle to tell people to book a tour from their accommodation establishment which will take them there in a 4x4 and has its own guide on board.  A much less stressful option. 

 

I wasn't going to allow my Hole in the Wall non-experience to get me down though and decided to go and climb the hill between the main beach and Bomvu Bay.  This wasn't a bad idea at all.  The walk took me along the beach and through the shallow Nenga River mouth.  From here I followed a path up along the sea side of the hill, eventually looking probably a good 50 meters straight  down on the sea below.  The view from the top was amazing looking down on the village on one side and the coastline on both.  Really worth the climb and fully (ok, mostly then) made up for the earlier disappointment.