Eastern Cape – chilling out in the tension zone

The Eastern Cape is our second biggest province, with a great variety of landscapes and opportunities. Editor David Bristow reckons this is the province for getting outdoors & dirty.

The Eastern Cape is an ancient tension zone. It’s the meeting place of more natural biomes than any other province; it’s an area where European armies and white settlers first came into real conflict with the indigenous people; and it is also where black resistance to colonial rule in South Africa was first and most seriously awakened.

While the later Zulu wars got all the press, the frontier wars between Xhosa people on the one side of the Great Fish and the British Army on the other, were an altogether bigger conflict. They also had a far greater influence on the country’s political and social landscape.

No other place has a richer history, or better encapsulates the richness of nature: the rugged Wild Coast, verdant Amatola Mountains and forests, the aloe-studded interior of this frontier province. And the best way to experience it is slowly.

The following five trails are a fine sample of this multi-faceted region.

1. Wild Coast Meander
This was the original ‘slack-packing’ hiking trail in South Africa, where hikers sleep each night in a different hotel and carry only what they need for the day’s walking. It’s a beach trail, so think of it more like a walking beach holiday.

The distances are not long and the going mostly flat, so any person who can walk should be able to do this trail. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t spectacular: it covers the Transkei coast that still dances to the beat of old Africa. The hotels too are old style, as are the prices – ideally suited to hikers who want a touch of comfort and ease.

The trails are all guided, to help ease your passage through this traditional, Xhosa-speaking territory, as well as making it an ecotourism project. Take the opportunity to learn about the place from the guide, who is a ‘local’.

The original ‘meander’ ran southwards, from Kob Inn at the Qora Mouth to Morgan’s Bay just south of the Kei River. However, over the past few years it has been extended: three stand-alone trails now run all the way from Coffee Bay to East London.

Together they offer some two weeks of glorious coastal hiking, staying in a variety of hotels, chalets and huts. It is hiking, but it’s hardly a slog.

Distance: Approximately 40 kilometres.
Duration: Five days.
Difficulty: Easy.
Take with you: Just a day pack with sun screen and a costume. Also, don’t forget to consult a tide table so you do most of your walking at low tide, as well as the vital river crossings.
Contact: Wild Coast Reservations in East London, tel 043-743-6181, e-mail meross@iafrica.com.

2. Amatola Trail
This is the king of all trails in South Africa. Each of the six days hiking is as different as the various trail lodgings. You start climbing the foothills in dank yellowwood forest, emerge onto wildflower-confettied montane grasslands, spend whole days following valley systems and water-filled gorges, and finish the hike at the sleepy, mountain hamlet of Hogsback.

There certainly isn’t a dull moment on this trail. However, be warned, it’s over 100 kilometres long, so there’s no easy day either. You really need to do this trail in summer when the longer days allow for long, wondrous days of walking and discovery – and the innumerable swimming holes. Winter in the Amatola has its snowy appeal, but the days are short and very cold.

To some extent the shelters themselves are an attraction: an old forester’s home, a simple lean-to next to Dontsa Falls, thatched rondavels at Cata, a Xhosa umuzi (homestead) in Mnyameni Valley, log cabins in the Hogsback forest at Zingcuka, and finally Hogsback village itself.

Distance: 105 kilometres.
Duration: Six days.
Difficulty: Really tough.
Take with you: Carry light to walk easy on this trail. Only shelter is provided so you need everything else (including toilet paper). Rain gear in summer and snow stuff in winter. Insect repellent for ticks (cattle are grazed here).
Contact: Eastern Cape Department of Forestry, tel 043-642-1747 or 083-755-1485, e-mail amatolhk@dwaf.gov.za.

3. Madiba Trail
This trail traverses some of the most dramatic landscapes in Southern Africa, the wildest, northern part of the Wild Coast from the Mtamvuna south to the Umngazi River. Terrifying sea cliffs and forested gorges, waterfalls plunging directly into the sea, pristine river mouths, little-known game reserves and botanical wonderlands. You’ll also find the most intact pre-colonial African cultural fabric stretched across the rolling green landscape. You can walk the trail or do it on horseback. It’s an ecotourism project, partially funded by the European Union, that is run by the various communities along the way.

The curious site of the wreck of the Grosvenor, a legendary East Indiaman that ran aground at Lambasi Bay, is just one highlight that will puzzle you for long afterwards. Another is Waterfall Bluff and massive cliffs around Mbotyi, and Mkambathi Reserve, the lonely beaches the entire trail is a highlight.

Distance: Approximately 110 kilometres.
Duration: Five days.
Difficulty: If you’re riding a horse it’s moderately easy, but if you’re hiking it’s a challenging hike.
Take with you: Just your personal effects and a sleeping bag. Accommodation varies from tents and huts with Afro-Euro sustenance by villagers, to luxury hotels.
Contact: Mzamba Tourism Office in Port Edward, tel 039-305-6455, fax 039-305-6538 or e-mail amadiba@euwildcoast.za.org.

4. Kowie Canoe Trail
The Kowie River, which reaches the sea at Port Alfred, is hardly one of the country’s bigger rivers. And the canoe trail that follows its tidal bore as far as the sea water penetrates inland, is hardly one of its grander trails.

However, it’s a special place and a special kind of trail for anyone looking to get away from the madding crowds, yet not wanting to necessarily ‘go big’.

Its intimacy is the main attraction. The overnight hut is tucked on a bank 21 kilometres upstream, at a place called Waters Meeting, which is around the impressive Horseshoe loop in the river. Once you reach this spot, you could be lost on any wild, jungle river anywhere in the world.

Using the ebb and flow of the tidal river, it should be about three hours’ paddling each way.

Distance: 21 kilometres each way.
Duration: Two days (or half days).
Difficulty: Easy.
Take with you: A food basket from Butlers Riverside Restaurant in town, a sleeping bag and personal effects. Binoculars for bird watching.
Contact: Port Alfred Tourism Office, tel 046-624-1235, e-mail tourism@ndlambe.co.za.

5. Otter and Tsitsikamma
Some people would place either of these two trails – one coastal and the other mountain – on top of their lists. But I have my own favourite beach (Wild Coast Meander) and mountain (Amatola) trails. (Also, technically these two are only half in the Eastern Cape, crossing the Bloukrans River into the Western Cape about midway.)

The Otter Trail remains South Africa’s most famous, starting at Storms River Mouth and following the rocky coastline westwards to Nature’s Valley. The Tsitsikamma Trail starts in the De Vasselot camp site at Nature’s Valley and climbs eastwards into the fynbos- and forest-clad mountains to end at the Storms River bridge.

These are both standard ‘old hiking way’ trails in character, with wooden huts equipped only with bunk beds and mattresses. They are both unquestionably top 10 trails in the country, in pristine natural areas.

Distance: Otter 44 km; Tsitsikamma 57 km.
Duration: Five days each.
Difficulty: Tsitsikamma tough to hard (consider the ‘slack-packing’ option where you carry only a day pack); Otter moderate to tough.
Take with you: Everything including a stove and light. Snorkelling gear for the Otter Trail.
Contact: Ivy-Anne on tel 044-874-4363 or e-mail ivy@cyberperk.co.za.