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………….
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