Welcome to the Wild Coast, Eastern Cape, South Africa“This is one of South Africa’s most fascinating and
beautiful areas whose rugged coastline attracts hikers,
surfers, scuba divers and fishermen…” The South Africa
Handbook (1996) | |
“The enchanted coastline, too remote for modern
development, has remained virtually unspoilt and offers
secluded bays and beaches, rocky headlands and some of the
best fishing to be found anywhere along the coast.”
Eyewitness Travel Guide: (1999) | |
“This is one of South Africa’s most unspoilt areas, a
vast
stretch of undulating hills, lush forest and spectacular
beaches…” Rough Guide to South Africa. (2002) | |
Come and Experience the Wild Coast …All the wild places of this world have a secret, a
barrier, a portal - something that makes them hard to find
or difficult to get to. The Wild Coast, on the eastern
seaboard of South Africa, has its own secrets. It’s a
land that has been lost in time. | |
The modern world has passed by the Wild Coast – a
combination of
history, geography and politics has left it
largely undeveloped and unexplored. Most
roads are
still gravelled, the byways unused, the population still
live as they have done for centuries. There are many
things that
have been left undisturbed and unawakened by the busy
outside world. They are waiting to be discovered…. | |
For there is ancient magic on this coast – magic that
causes waterfalls to fall directly into the sea; magic
that calls the dolphins to play in the warm water. There
is magic that haunts the high cliffs of black rock; the
strange landscapes; the spirits of water and forest and
stone. There is magic too, in the old
traditions of
the
people – the tall elegant ochre-clad women who
sway down
the dust roads with jars of water on their heads; the
amakhweta boys with their clay-daubed white faces and reed
dancing skirts; the pot-bellied piglets that trundle along
the roadside. This is a land that is full of spirits –
water spirits that dwell in pools and once caused a
young
girl to make a prophesy that would lead her
people to
disaster; tree spirits in the thick forests that cling to
the cliff-sides of sheer mountains; sea-spirits about
which legends are told at the fabled
Hole-in-the-
Wall.
This coast is restless - there are angry waves and
currents that clash and foam out beyond the shore and have
given the Wild Coast a
shipwreck-strewn
shoreline and a reputation as being the home of fractious
sea gods. There
is magic, too, in the names of places - some of them
recalling the sigh of the wind or the rush of water, some
of them reflecting the characters and the rambunctious
history
of this frontier. | |
If there is something in you that makes you want to break
from the tradition of a one-size-fits-all lifestyle, with
cookie-cutter holidays – then come to the Wild Coast. The
secrets you uncover might be your own. | |
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