After a lovely stay at Margate we continued driving south along the coast. Passed several small, lovely places and beaches. After just half an hour we passed Port Edward, and the main road continued inland for some miles.
We now left the province of Kwazulu Natal, and entered the northern part of the province of Eastern cape – the region called “The Wild Coast” !
The Wild Coast region stretches from the southern border of KwaZulu-Natal – to East London in the south.
Before democracy in 1994 the Wild Coast formed part of the Transkei, separated from the rest of South Africa as a “homeland” under the apartheid system .
It is the traditional home of the Xhosa people, and the birthplace of many prominent South Africans, including Nelson Mandela.
We were driving up and down green hills and passed several small villages with traditional round huts.
We ended the first day in “The Wild” – at Port St John the coast. The town itself was not that interesting, we found it a bit dirty and not a nice place to stay overnight. However, there were a few places just outside the town that were supposed to be decent. After passing a couple of places that we were not happy with, we finally came across a nice place – “The Spotted Gunter Resort“. It is situated on the banks of the Umzimvubu river and has nice units fully contained for self catering. Braai facilities as well as a nice ala carte restaurant and bar are on site. We had a good meal at the restaurant in the evening.
We stayed in two wooden chalets beside each other- each with a bedroom, en suite bathroom, kitchen and sitting area with TV. Just outside the cabins there were large lawns with great views of mountains, and a deck overlooking both the pool and the river.
The next day we continued driving south through the Wild Coast. Many people were out walking along the roads, and both cows and goats appeared in the middle of the road.
We followed the R61 and drove inland for a while, and came to Mthatha, the administrative center of the region and the former capital of the “homeland” Transkei . Then the name was Umtata , and it was not until March 2004 that the town changed the name back to Mthatha. Nelson Mandela came from this area, and in this town you can visit the Nelson Mandela National Museum
We took the main road N2 until we came to the town of Butterworth. Then we followed a road towards the coast. Wanted to try one of the hotels by the sea. 25 km on tar road and then it changed to dirt road. It was bumpy, but finally we came to the coast. The hotel we had in mind was closed so we had to continue on and take another dirt road towards Morgan Bay which we had been recommended. This dirt road was even worse, and in the end a sharp stone in the road punctured one of the tyres!
What do we do now, in the middle of nowhere? No houses or people around for miles. We got out of the car, moved our luggage and took out the spare tyre. Suddenly we saw a car coming towards us, a pickup with several young people. When they understood we had a puncture they asked if we wanted some help. Sure! In a flash two of the boys had changed the wheel for us, amazing. How fortunate!
We carefully drove on.. After a while we came to the mouth of Kei River which we had to cross. There was one small riverboat for transporting two cars at a time.
Wow, it was a bit scary to enter that little boat, and to get ashore on the other side we had to reverse onto the river bank.
Finally we arrived at the Morgan Bay and luckily the Morgan Bay Hotel had two available rooms for us.
Morgan Bay hotel was in a great location – just off a long pristine beach.
We really liked the rooms, with comfortable beds and balconies with seaview. In the garden – a nice pool and a playground for children.
The food at the restaurant was very good as well. The first evening they did not serve their traditional 3 course dinner, because of a bigger Sunday Lunch they had that day. So the first evening we had a lighter meal at the pub.
What is better way to wake up in the morning than to the sound of sea!
( Almost as good as at our cabin by the sea back in NORWAY..)
After a lovely breakfast next day my stepfather went to the nearest garage to get a new tyre, the spare tyre was too small for regularly use. The girls, my mother, daughter and I went for a walk on the beach.
Nice playground in the garden.
In the afternoon we got a visit from this little guy. The cockatoo was quite tame, I guess someone that worked at the hotel owned the bird. Stine was thrilled of getting this nice visit.
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