Wild Coast Part 2: Surfing, Whales & the beach

Day three we set off relatively early and had 14km to go to get back to Cinsta, where we had left the majority of our belongings before driving north to the start of our hike. There were a few small river crossings, but nothing like what we would have experienced during the rainy summer months, and the rest of the day was literally walking down one continuous sandy beach.

Strandloper Trail

river fording

Back at Cinsta we were staying in a ‘safari tent’ – basically a glorified tent with a bed, beside table, lamp, and a killer view from the platform. Showers, food, and a few hours of reading on the deck sufficiently revived us to head back down to the beach. We rented a surfboard, boogie board, and two wetsuits and took turns trying our luck. It’d been years since I’d surfed but I was pretty inspired by my short stint and am stoked to spend some more time at it this fall. While we were taking turns in the waves, Steven spotted something in the water waaaay across the bay that looked as tall as a building, and like a tail. It continued closer to us, seeming to bob upside down. The tail was all we ever saw but it would stay visible for 5 minutes at a time, and was unbelievably huge. We later learned it was a Southern Right Whale, and that that’s normal behavior. It was quite the show.

Safari tent

hang 10

Southern Right Whale

view from the safari tent

Cinsta 

sunrise before we head to the airport

Wild Coast Backpacking: South Africa

Our flight took us to East London, which is on the southeast coast of the country, an area known as the Wild Coast. We stayed in a backpackers hostel in Cinsta which was lively (overly), but lovely. The next morning we got a ride north to Kei Mouth where we began our three days of ‘backpacking’. It was an organized trail, with huts each night, and small villages to pass each day where you could buy provisions.  The walk was mostly right along the sandy beach, with a few low bluffs and one day with a good bit of walking on rock right on the shoreline. The huts sleep up to 12 people but we had them all to ourselves, a major stroke of luck.

Day 1 after our ‘orientation’ we asked where in Kei Mouth we should get some food for dinner that night and were told it was a bit out of the way but we could get food as we walked through Morgan Bay for lunch.  Off we went. After two thoroughly enjoyable weeks of non-stop movement we were thrilled to be out in the fresh air (no Micra) and pretty ok with the fact that our backpacking was shaping up to be fairly relaxing. The orientation contained the tidbit that we didn’t need to hurry, we should just ‘amble’ along and would be just fine.

Breakfast @ Buccaneers

Morgan Bay

Lunch was great, we asked directions to the grocery store, and headed 15 minutes uphill only to find it had closed for the day an hour earlier (1pm). The ‘store’ was little more than a tiny shop and there were no other prospects for finding food in the town. We resigned ourselves to a very sad night of Top Ramen (the backups we had in our packs).

We got to the hut and were thrilled, it was right on the water with a gorgeous view. We spent some early evening hours reading our books, until Matt spotted 20 or more dolphins that were moving upshore  and surfing the waves. Incredible show to watch.

At one point, two guys walked by holding fishing poles, and a few seconds after they passed Ashley said ‘steven! Go see if they got any fish! Lets buy it!’.  It took another two minutes to collect ourselves and realize this was actually a great idea, at which point we all poured the change in our pockets into Stevens hand and off the boys went. The guys had indeed caught one fish, after Steven ascertained it was edible they proceeded to bargain it down to the only possible price – the approximately $2.00 that Steven had in change.  Fishy went on our wood fired braai and turned out quite nicely! (At least significantly better than the top ramen).

fish sale

 Stevens

Stevens

Day two was windy but the clear blue skies continued and we spent much of the day scrambling along black rock on the shoreline. Hut two was in a protected area, which meant no braai that night – dry goods only for dinner were helped by the fact that we’d had a warm lunch in Haga Haga.

 Stevens