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After nearly being burnt to death in Howick it was almost a pleasant feeling standing in snow with an air temperature of 4C, just north of Umtata in the Eastern Cape.
Umtata wouldn't merit a second glance except that it is home to the excellent Nelson Mandela museum. Mandela was born in a small village nearby and you can stop alongside his current home, a modest (and ugly) country house where he spends his holidays and has family re-unions.
We'd headed from Howick downhill to the coast at Durban in the vain hope of more settled weather but various cold fronts from Antarctica conspired to ensure that our trip south along the KwaZulu Natal and Eastern Cape coasts was one of freeze-thaw interspersed with heavy winds and tons of rain.
We sought sanctuary in a 5 bedroom rustic chalet at Oribi Gorge, a beautiful KZN nature reserve. Unfortunately "rustic" meant broken windows, broken doors and temperatures hovering just above freezing! We shared this cavernous ex farmhouse with a family of black rats, who clearly enjoyed the warmth of our fan heater and the smells from the kitchen, as it was difficult to shift them! This was not the venue I had in mind for my 49th birthday but I soon cheered up as I lit a sparkler and stuck it in a chocolate chip cookie (by heck, we know how to party!)
Our campsite at Port St John, the start of the Wild Coast and what used to be the Transkei Xhosa homeland (self governing area) under apartheid, was in a superb setting near the mouth of a river with towering cliffs on either side. We spotted our first whales and dolphins of the season and got a soaking wet tent thanks to the dampness in the early morning air, (it made a change from rain soaking the tent!)
The Wild Coast is aptly named, the N2 motorway goes inland here and as a result there are nearly 250 kilometres of relatively unspoilt coast with coastal dunes, golden sand beaches, towering cliffs, the remains of lush coastal forests and numerous rivers cascading down to the sea from the inland mountain areas.
We'd first been through the region on a 5-day 4x4 trip years ago, and it was here we had first met Heike, Clint, Simon and Lynn, our friends in Cape Town. The area is becoming less remote as the few roads are progressively tarred so if you fancy a fantastic off road adventure with stunning scenery and quaint old fashioned hotels go now!
Our final Wild Coast campsite was at Morgan's Bay, with superb view over the lagoon to the Indian Ocean beyond. The family hotel here was the same as we remembered it from 8 years before, even down to the red jelly and custard desert! We had our first sighting of humpback dolphins, a rare species with (you've guessed it) humpbacks!
We are gradually following the coast towards the Cape, taking the same route as the whales (humpback and Southern Rights) though we are probably getting wetter than them! At our current stop, Port Alfred, we spent a fantastic morning birding with Anne Williams, a local guide. Her enthusiasm was infectious and her knowledge encyclopaedic and we came away with 16 new birds on our ticklist, including Black Harriers and African Marsh harriers.
Less enjoyable and very odd was a visit to a pineapple farm, which claims to have the world's largest man-made pineapple structure (we'll take their word for that!) The museum inside contained everything you ever wanted to know about pineapples including a riveting 5 minute documentary on harvesting and canning. I'll spare you the details, suffice to say I'll drop them in to the conversation next time we get invited to dinner (if we ever get invited to dinner again after this trip!)
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