It
was hard to leave J-Bay, we'd found a very comfortable niche there. After more
than two (nearly three) weeks honing our cutbacks and perfecting our
barrel-stance we really needed to get on the road. Time was getting away from
us and we still had a lot to do in South Africa. The daily routine of eat,
surf, sleep, repeat had taken a bit of the Africa out of the experience so our
first stop out of J-Bay was Addo Elephant National Park to re-acquaint
ourselves with the local wildlife.
I
got pretty sick as we rolled out of town, something to do with leaving one of
the world's best point-breaks behind with no known return-date I think. So,
while Mon chased zebras around the park in our van, I groaned and complained.
Self-game-driving in a National Park is a very different experience to having a
guided tour. Because you don't know the good places to spot animals you sort of
just take a punt on which road to drive down and anything you come across is a
surprise and an achievement. We didn't spot any lions or anything, but we found
a big gaggle of mongeese, a lot of warthogs, and got unnervingly close to a
rather large African elephant. A trained guide could probably have told us if
we were too close or not, we had no idea so Mon kept her foot hovering over the
accelerator just in case it made a move. There are signs up all through the
park asking people to kindly not run over elephant poo, because that kills dung
beetles.
We'd
met a few people in our travels who live in Port Alfred and they all reckoned
the waves there can get really good. More than one person claimed that Kelly
Slater drops by for a wave when he's in the area for the J-Bay comp. I know a
similar story about a town just down the road from Bells. When we arrived the
surf was quite bad. There are a pair of breakwaters; one with a left-hander
breaking along it and one with a right. There was definite potential, so we
stayed in town for the night to see if conditions improved for the following
day. The backpackers in town was being run by an old bloke who loved a chat. He
had the strongest Afrikaner accent we'd come across and we couldn't understand
much of what he said. We smiled and nodded and laughed at what we thought were
the right places then had an early night. The surf wasn't much better in the morning
so we set off toward the Wild Coast.
East
London ('Slundon') was the first place where we encountered Government Grant
Day. In South Africa welfare payments are distributed in one, monthly, lump
sum. On Government Grant Day everyone on welfare storms the shops like they'll
miss out on food if they don't buy as much as they can as fast as possible. We
thought we'd found the busiest supermarket in the country until we asked
someone what the go was.
The
Wild Coast is a stretch that runs from about East London in the Southwest to
Port Edward in the Northeast. The main highway swings inland and there aren't
really any roads that run along the coast. You have to pick a specific
destination and make the journey from inland. Unless you have a 4WD and a plan
you're sort of restricted to your chosen stretch of beach.
The
first place we stayed at was a place called Chintsa. It can also be spelled
Cintsa or Cyntsa, so we had no idea how to actually pronounce the word. When we
asked the staff at our accommodation they informed us that the word is from the
local Xhosa language and is pronounced (Click)nsta, so we were never going to
get it right on our own. The place we stayed was an epic backpackers spread out
over a few acres of bushland overlooking a lagoon and the beach. Despite the
lack of discernible banks (of the sand variety) it was a really nice beach with
an abundance of surfing dolphins. It was a good place to spend a couple of days
and chill out.
Unfortunately,
while we were at Chintsa, we were engaged in war with South African Airlines, so
we didn't really get to enjoy the place as much as we would have liked. We had
some volunteer work lined-up in Mozambique, but the NGO we had organised it
with had run into some Visa issues with the government and we were no longer
able to work there. The same organisation runs a project in South Africa and we
were offered a place there, which we accepted. Changing our flights was a pain
and expensive and Mon did most of the work.
Driving
in the Transkei, the area around and inland of the Wild Coast, is hectic.
There're lots of hills and winding roads and animals everywhere and potholes
and road works and landslides and no adherence to speed limits or rational
thinking. There are also about 1.3 million hitch-hikers per 100km. Each is
difficult to pass by with their burden of shopping and/or children and their
big doe-eyes.
Coffee Bay is the most raved-about place on
the Wild Coast. We'd heard good reports from everyone, seen posters and read
tourist info about it everywhere. We had it marked as a place to visit before
we even left Australia. It's portrayed as an isolated patch of paradise with a
nice point-break that seemed perfect for Mon and myself to score a few
chicken-feeders.
The
best backpackers in town couldn't accommodate our van, but the one across the
road could. We happily claimed a campsite tucked away in a secluded corner of
the garden with a view of the river. Lonely Planet says that this backpackers
has a 'definite hippy vibe', that's exactly how I'd describe it too. There's a
veggie patch and goats roaming about, fire twirling lessons, free yoga sessions
and nightly drumming circles and you can't walk far without passing through a
cloud of marijuana smoke. But there was also a definite off-season vibe; the
hot water wasn't working and wasn't being fixed, the yoga and fire twirling guy
was away for a while, there was a bit of half-hearted construction going on and
the place just seemed a bit neglected.
Coffee
Bay itself wasn't quite up to our expectations. For an isolated place it felt
kind of cramped with four or so backpackers and other accommodation, shops and
people jammed into a little cove. They all sort of bled into one another and
the dirty hippy vibe was present throughout the town. I guess most of the
owners were too busy overcharging tourists and fellow hippies to worry about
the environmental impact of such an overcrowded, overdeveloped, poorly-built
settlement perched on the high-tide mark of a remote beach.
The
beach itself was great, despite the point-break being a hoax. There were a few
rip-able peaks around and we both got our share of waves. On more than one
occasion a pod of twenty or so dolphins shared the line-up with us and showed
us up. They were jumping out of wave-faces and frothing about in a dolphin-like
manner. There was a genuine risk that a flying dolphin might spear-tackle us,
but there's nothing like sharing a wave with these magnificent creatures.
A day trip to a place called Hole in the Wall
is a must-do for visitors of Coffee Bay. We drove, but they run guided hikes
every few days. We have plenty of fantastic rock formations at home, but this
one is pretty spectacular. Once you've heard the name you kind of know what
you're going to see; it's a big rock-wall with a hole in it.
Pondo
Fever is epidemic on the Wild Coast. The condition is named after the Xhosa
kingdom which used to be in the area. Symptoms include laziness, lack of
motivation and a tendency to stay in a certain place for weeks or months rather
than the planned few days. Cause of the fever is often blamed on the locally
grown, plentiful, dagga. Dagga is the Afrikaans word for Marijuana. We came
across several people on the Wild Coast who were showing symptoms. A lot of
them seemed to have come as travellers and ended up working at a backpackers or
coffee shop while they stayed for a few months just chilling out. One guy we
met, who worked at our backpackers in Coffee Bay and seemed to spend all his
time getting ready to build a bed, finished Super Mario in 35 minutes the other
night.
After
Coffee Bay we planned to head up into the Drakensberg (Dragon Mountains), it's
a pretty solid drive so we decided to break up the journey with a night in Port
St Johns. We arrived there at the same time as a pretty heavy rain shower,
which steadily got worse and, later that evening, turned into the worst storm
the town had seen in over a decade. After a hectic night of thunder and
lightning we awoke to the news that the whole region, and much of the rest of
the country, had been smashed by this storm. People had been stranded by
floods, houses had collapsed and there had been heavy snowfalls. The main road
between Johannesburg and Durban was closed because of the snow and so were many
of the roads through the Drakensberg.
We
were kind of confused about having our Africa plans ruined by snow, the last
problem we expected to have on this continent, so we decided it was best to
head for a warm climate. As we were moving toward Durban anyway, we figured
we'd just spend a few days in the sunshine on the beaches around the city.
There is a stretch of quite-nice beaches that runs from Durban down to the edge
of the Wild Coast which was just what we were looking for. Coming over the
hills from the Transkei and getting a look at the ocean, it was clear where all
the rain from the storm was going; into the rivers then out to sea. A very well
defined line separated the blue sea water from the brown river water, and it
looked to be several kilometres out to sea. We spent four days cruising up and
down the South KZN coast (that's what they call it) hanging out with monkeys surfing
the frothy, chocolaty waves at places with names like uMtentweni and uMzumbe. We
made a trip up north to Ballito where the water was blue but the sea was flat.
Back down south the surf wasn't great, and we weren't too keen on the grainy,
brown sea, so as soon as the roads up north were cleared we set off for the
Drakensberg.
Lesotho
is known as 'The Kingdom in the Sky'; it sits atop the Drakensberg and
surrounding mountains. It's a sovereign nation surrounded on all sides by South
Africa. 75% of the country is made up of mountains which aren't much good for
anything except grazing goats, sheep and the occasional donkey, so most of the
population are farmers living off their livestock and a few crops. The only
route into Lesotho from KwaZulu-Natal (KZN, the South African province we were
in) is through a high mountain pass through the Drakensberg. The road is called
the Sani Pass and is a 4WD-only track at the best of times. While covered in
snow it's more like a challenging hiking trail. When you look at the road map
it's easy to see how we thought we'd just cruise up in our van, luckily we had
the good sense to read a bit more into it before we had a crack.
There
is a great backpackers at the bottom of the Sani Pass which runs day tours up
the pass and into Lesotho. We were lucky and scored a pretty clear day for our
trip, so the views were off the chain. Towering over the pass is an imposing
mountain wall with a series of peaks. They're called The Twelve Apostles, funny
name for a group of rock formations. About two kilometres before the border
crossing we had to ditch the Landy and go on foot. It's a pretty steep road,
but a spectacular walk with the snow and mountains and all that. The Lesotho
passport control building had been snowed in, but someone had dug out a path to
the door. A few words with our guide (who crosses the border every day sans
passport) and the immigration official was convinced no one else would make
their way up the pass in the next few hours; he gave us our entry and exit
stamps and knocked off for a few beers.
The
highest pub in Africa is located atop the Sani Pass. It has stunning views and
stunningly overpriced beers. We took our packed lunch to the top of one of the
apostles and ate while we looked down upon the road. A part of the tour was to
visit a few locals and check in on what they were up to, we ate some bread, I
bought a beanie, the immigration officer strolled past with a long-neck in his
hand. Hiking through the snow and seeing the lifestyle that the people of
Lesotho lead was not something I expected of Africa but it's been one of the
highlights so far.
The
Sani Pass is in the Southern Drakensberg, after a few days there we set off for
the Northern Drakensberg which is where you can find an incredible chunk of
rock called The Amphitheatre. The Amphitheatre is about 5km long and over a
kilometre high. It's situated in the Royal Natal National Park where you can
also find cave paintings made by the San people quite a few years ago. There
was a lot of burning off going on around the area when we were there, but we
lucked out and got a pretty clear day to do a walk to The Amphitheatre. We
stayed in a place surrounded by grass paddocks with a panoramic view of the
mountains, when there isn't any smoke the views are nice.
We're
in Durban now, this is where we drop the Wicked van and head up to St Lucia to
do our few weeks of volunteer work. There are fantastic waves around Durban,
we're staying just down the beach from a place called Cave Rock which is known
to throw regular drainers along the
beach. It's small and onshore though, and not likely to change in the next few
days, so we're unlikely to see the Durban beaches light up. The break in
activities has given us a chance to plan some of the rest of the trip. Got some
exciting things to come.
Pat
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