Coffee Bay

I get one weekend off work a month, and for September’s weekend I headed to Coffee Bay with some friends at other projects. Having only seen the outskirts of Mthatha from the plane window, it was great to see the surrounding area during journey and the contrast between the town and the more rural areas of the Eastern Cape was amazing. In the 2 hours it took us to get there, we had gone from a bustling city through a sparse landscape with teeny rondavels dotting grassy planes, to rolling hills with a pink sunset, to the winding roads which led to even more little villages, and finally to the coast, all along a VERY pot-holey track! I wish I had the opportunity to get some photos during the journey, (Sam, Stu and Kirsty…just WOW! You would have had a field day out there with your cameras!).

Although I haven’t had a chance to explore South Africa properly yet, I know that Coffee Shack is going to be one of my favourite places! My accommodation for the three nights was a Rondavel with 3 bunk beds … the best bit was I had to cross a (bridgeless) river to get to it! Quite funny actually, especially when the river leads to the sea and the currents are fighting to knock you over both ways…not quite so funny when the tide is in and the water goes up past your thighs! But an experience I must admit and what a sight for anyone watching me attempt to cross J

During the 3 days I was there, I got to see why the area is called ‘The Wild Coast’. It’s completely untouched and such a beautiful place to visit – if anyone is ever in South Africa, it’s worth a visit in itself! On one of the days I went for a really long walk along the coast, down a very steep crumbly cliff on my bum, over lots of slippery rocks and into a bat cave which stank of poo, before squeezing through a very narrow gap between two rocks and taking a dip in a ‘natural jacuzzi’ as it were...VERY COLD! I then clambered up some huge rocks before being shown where to/not to dive off by a man throwing a rock into the sea below. What was worrying was that the ‘where NOT to jump’ rock was about 3 foot away from the ‘where TO jump’ – there is no ‘health and safety’ here at all! It took me three attempts to actually do the cliff dive, but I DID IT! J

What I loved most about Coffee Bay was that everyone staying there were all travellers too and they all had such amazing and interesting stories to tell around the campfires in the evening. One guy was telling me about how his sister used to live in Bishops Stortford…small world, eh?! I also managed to squeeze in a surfing lesson (yes I did manage to stand on the board and hold it there for about 10 seconds, and no I did not get eaten by sharks, although I did see some Dolphins!).

The whole place was really hippy and everything was eco-friendly (you Scriven’s would have loved it). We did lots of singing and dancing in the evening to 4 men playing drums…a shout out to Rhino…I’ll keep my promise and will be back soon, haha J