The Wonderful Wild Coast

At the beginning of September I had the pleasure of visiting ‘Hole In The Wall’ on the wild coast. Not exactly a hidden gem, but man did we do it in style! We had the very good fortune of staying in what must be one of the best cottages at that location.

Now when you talk about style in this part of the world, we don’t mean actual STYLE! We mean running water, electricity, fridges, stove and of course location, and boy, did we have a great location. Standing on our balcony we were but a stone’s throw….no….a shot put throw away from the sea. It had a wonderful braai and entertainment area that overlooked the beach. Combine all this with fully equipped kitchen and comfortable rooms, we were living in style!

Everyday there was an endless procession of marine life, which we did not even have to move to see. The dolphins in particular were great, starting early in the morning feeding just off the backline. Then as the waves rolled in they would rise up and race down the face, jumping out ahead of the wave and as the wave broke inshore you’d see them all bailing out the back in a phenomenal aerial display. Another firm favourite were the whales, I don’t think there was a moment when there wasn’t at least one whale visible. Constantly jumping out at sea, landing with an explosion of white water and some so close you could hear them hit the water with a mighty slap! There were two memorable sightings worth mentioning, if you watch the video after reading this you’ll see the group of rocks directly out in front of our cottage. At one stage a massive whale passed just beyond those rocks, a mere 150m from shore. At times lifting its tail and slapping the water, giving us a real idea of the size of these enormous mammals. The second was also really special and this one we got on film. We climbed the hill overlooking the bay and were admiring the view from the cliff, when a mother whale and her baby passed directly below us, giving us a most amazing sighting of them.

No trip to the ‘Kei’ is complete without a bit of hiking and we did more than a bit. We hiked from HITW to Coffee Bay the one morning, a challenging yet spectacular hike. We had some hair raising moments whilst following the trail around some of the headlands because of the SW wind that was blowing. The trail is not exactly wide and with a sheer 50m drop on your right to the rocks below and a gale force wind blowing, made it quite intimidating. It was all part of the experience and in-between we had a great time, exploring the rock pools, the caves cut into the cliffs and the fantastic views….

We ate like kings, braaing every night and sampling the local cuisine - crayfish, mussels and fresh fish. The only complaint was the weather, which was fairly gloomy our last few days, but being something we couldn’t control, it never dampened our spirits………….

The amazing Kruger National Park

Here's a little story to show just how amazing the Kruger National Park is and why I still believe it stands head and shoulders above the rest!

A little while ago I was asked to provide a trip to the Kruger for a client, but being short notice and the park being full we were only able to get one night accommodation at Pretoriuskop camp in the south of the park. I assured the guest it was the right move and we went for it.

Coming from far we only managed to enter the park at 12:30pm on the first day and made our way to the camp. Even being the hottest part of the day we still manage to tick off elephant (first animal); warthog; wilderbeest; zebra and a great sighting of rhino, as well as a wide range of antelope. The late afternoon drive was great as well and provided much of the same, including giraffe and some of what makes Kruger so special! The small creatures, prolific birdlife and amazing sunsets...... The last animal we saw just 100m from camp was a big heard of buffalo that blocked the road and nearly made us late.

That evening around the braai as our meat cooked, we wondered on what tomorrow would bring, one last morning in the park and still no big cats. Little did we know how lucky we would be.......

Brimming with excitement we were the first out the gates and were heading for Lower Sabie. The first animal we saw that morning was something very rare, a herd of tsessebe, just off the road. We followed this up with 3 hyena who came onto the road and offered a magnificent photo opportunity with the rising sun. Next was a honey badger, who tried to trick us by using a storm drain under the road to hide but eventually showed himself and crossed the road in front of us. As the sun warmed up the veld, one by one the usual suspects showed themselves including a massive bull elephant at Transport Dam. By the time we hit the Lower Sabie road we were in high spirits and would have been quite happy to leave it there......

Then, as tends to happen on the Sabie road or 'Eloff street' as my volks called it all through my childhood, we rounded a bend to be greeted by +- 15 cars all jostling for position. This usually means one thing, a cat! After a few minutes straining to see what all the commotion was about we were told by another vehicle that a leopard had been seen and it's last movement was towards where we had just come. From experience I decided to take a chance and turn around, making our way back and combing the bush for any sign of the creature. About 200 yards back was one of those dirt loops that extend a little towards the river so I ducked down it and slowly edged along. Nothing!!! As I was coming out the other side I started to do a U-turn so as to do the loop once more before giving up. As I glanced back down the tar road there she sat, just on the verge watching the goings on down the road, so camouflaged that I could only just make out the distinctive outline of the beautiful feline. Unfortunately as I struggled to turn the car around I spooked her and she quickly 'leopard crawled' across the road in front of us before disappearing into the bush......

We couldn't believe our luck and off we went, before a most unlikely sighting. Another bunch of cars in the road slowly coming towards us, obviously following something special. Lion? I thought, but to our surprise a beautiful cheetah appeared and which we managed to get a good look at before it chased something off into the veld. As we made our way towards Crocodile Bridge Gate we searched desperately for some lion, the only one of the big five that we hadn't seen, but it wasn't to be and frankly didn't bother us at all.

We exited the park at 12: 15pm that day, almost exactly 24hrs after entering knowing we had experienced the best Africa has to offer....................

Animals (pretty much) in order of appearance in 24hrs:

Elephant; impala; zebra; warthog; kudu; grey duiker; wilderbeest; rhino; steenbok; slender mongoose; water buck; bushbuck; giraffe; banded mongoose; buffalo; tsessebe; hyena; honeybadger; vervet monkey; dwarf mongoose; baboon; leopard; cheetah; hippo; crocodile.