Pondo Hopping

Pondoland is where you exchange the gentle landscape of the southern Transkei for a more rugged escapade. If fifty shades of green is your thing, buckle up for a bumpy ride into the Wild East of South Africa.

The women climb the grassy slope, slowly. It is early afternoon, the winter’s heat welcome and warming. Their white clay faces are arresting. Their vibrant clothing, splotches of colour against a canvas of greens of blues. White clay, just like white spray, would punctuate our travels through the wildest of the Wild Coast.

Dramatic cliffs, pounding waves, intimate coves, these are familiar images of the former Transkei, just like the littoral landmarks and well-known family resorts. Our quest: to exlore the part where it gets really wild. Wild scenery – plenty. Wild animals – not really. Wild roads – sure thing. Two out of three ticks were enough to get us excited. After our overland African adventure to Cairo and Israel, we were looking for adventure closer to home. The only dilemma, which season to go with our brand new baby, a Land Cruiser 200. This trip meant clocking up plenty of kilometres on punishing dirt roads. In summer, the rainy season, you contend with white clay surfaces, raging rivers and impassable fords. In winter the going is much better, but campers face bitter chill. We chose cold feet and tolerable roads.

Leaving disorderly Port St Johns behind, we pointed the Cruiser’s nose east across the mighty Mzimvubu River. At once there was an inexplicable freshness in the Pondoland dust. The jewel in the crown of the Wild Coast is remote, seldom visited, untamed, but no less inhabited. Even in the far northeast, close to the KwaZulu-Natal border, we passed through countless Xhosa villages, overlooked by the Drakensberg foothills in the distance. Approaching Mkhambathi Nature Reserve, the settlements drifted further and further apart, until there was no sign of habitation against the sloping green hills.

Our first overnight stop, Mkhambathi is 71km from the topsy-turvy town of Flagstaff and quite a mission to reach. We arrived shortly before sunset, just in time to form an impression of the 8000 ha landscape with its 10km shoreline. Predominantly grassland, Mkhambathi also has rocky headlands and sandy bays. Concrete tracks through parts of the coastal reserve lead to forested ravines and perennial streams; there are introduced grazers such as eland, red hartebeest, bushbuck and gemsbok. A large tract of land between the Mkhambathi and Mthentu river mouths has been set aside as a wilderness area and this is where you’ll find swamp forests and the dwarf Pondoland palm against the cliffs.

Hiking is popular here and there are plentiful trails to waterfalls, but we came for the energy of the coastline. Catch and release fishing with a permit is allowed in the MPA (Marine Protected Area). For anglers the GweGwe rondavels at the eponymous rivermouth is a fine setting; for hikers, the two three-bedroom stone cottages above the main beach, surrounded by frangipani trees, seem more convenient. Rustic (or run-down) it was adequate for a stopover, the setting marred by other structures that have not been maintained due to a land claim that has been pending for more than a decade.

Rivers originating in the Drakensberg escarpment have shaped the sandstone landscape of the former Transkei. Over millennia these rivers, flowing eastwards through the Eastern Cape towards the Indian Ocean, have cut deep sinuous valleys with plummeting vertical cliff faces. Gorges and crags abound. So although our next stop was just a hop, skip and jump from Mkhambathi, it took a few hours to reach Luputana, since you have to drive all the way back to Flagstaff and take the R61 to Lusikisiki. The hub of the region, Lusikisiki is dusty and not nearly as picturesque as its poetic name (“the sound of the wind through the reeds”) suggests. From here it is a 35km twisting track to Luputana mouth, which many consider the ultimate Pondoland hideaway.

Daunting drops and hairpin bends step down slowly to the flatland around the river mouth. There is absolutely nothing here, just a few cows and as many shacks. The beauty takes your breath away. The gorge is deep, the forest lush and the tiny bay, fringed by milkwoods and palms, has a cosy beach. The snow white sand is in stark contrast to the flat rock ledges, crashing waves and sea spray that whisper of storms and shipwrecks. Sheltering milkwoods beside the rock shelves make for a perfect campsite, and litter shows that self-sufficient adventurers occasionally use the spot as a beach camp. Had we been travelling in a group, we would have enquired from locals about permission to stay.

Backtracking to the village of Lambasi, one curses the speed humps. Why three, four of even five if one or two will suffice to break your speed? Again we wind our way to the coast, this time via the controversial Magwa tea estate, twenty years ago the largest tea estate in the southern hemisphere and recipient of a trophy for the best tea in the world. We stopped to smell the aromatic bushes that stretch as far as the eye can see, sad that they haven’t been tended and that disputes have brought the 1800 ha farm to a standstill, leaving 3500 workers without jobs.

The descent to Mbotyi is a steep road through a verdant (ALL the synonyms apply: emerald, olive, avocado, khaki, lime) indigenous forest, Ntsubane. Oh, to see a crowned eagle instead of the ubiquitous ravens! Mbotyi is postcard pretty, a quaint beach resort with a shallow lagoon and an expansive beach where the only sunbathers are cattle soaking up the heat from the sand. Then a human shape appeared amongst the dunes, a lone golfer practising drives and bunker shots in the company of his mutts. Private cottages abound and we wondered which of these was the lair of refugee bank robber André Stander before he fled to Fort Lauderdale. Our own safe haven was the community campsite, which has all amenities on terraced lawn, a campers’ paradise. We appreciated the covered kitchen areas (eight of them!), neat braai facilities, electricity and 24 hour security.

Crossing back across the Mzimvubu, we remained determined to find treasure off the beaten track. Breakers are my all-time favourite soundtrack and that’s just what you get at two relatively small nature reserves, Hluleka and Dwesa, both of which owe their existence to coastal forest and marine conservation. Situated between Port St Johns and Coffee Bay, remote Hluleka is reached via bad roads, but the reward is a million dollar view: from the clifftop above the ocean, scarlet aloes pierce the foreground, against a canvas of turbulent waves on the far side of a plummeting precipice. Lofty log cabins, their stilts surrounded by coral and Natal fig trees, capitalise on the same vista.

Shy blue duiker are harboured in the undergrowth at Hluleka and Dwesa, but I got a fleeting glimpse only once we’d left the reserves. Shortly after my prize sighting we encountered four stick-bearing men on a hunting spree with a pack of six dogs. We learnt that blue duiker is favoured as bush meat and that afternoon I was devastated to hear that the poachers managed to catch three of these dainty little antelopes.

Dwesa, the oldest forest reserve in the country (think yellowwood and white stinkwood), is reached from Willowvale and the road is not too arduous. Resident buffaloes evaded us, although they left ample evidence of their presence in the dense growth. A small troop of samango monkeys on the lawns of the sprawling campsite lifted my spirits. They eyed the Cruiser, the only occupant of 40 stands, but long before our rubber snake could be produced, retreated in the direction of the log cabins deep in the forest. Late afternoon saw us strolling along the beach decorated with driftwood sculptures and broken shells.

The final days of our journey along the coastal belt were spent at iconic Kob Inn, Mazeppa Bay and Trennery’s, then it was time to take the pontoon at Kei Mouth. We had overdosed on nature and although the going gets tough at times, the Cruiser sailed through without a scratch.

Cape Vultures

One of the least developed and poorest regions of South Africa, the former Transkei has been identified as crucial to Cape Vulture conservation. The inaccessible and isolated cliff faces are suitable roosting and breeding sites for the species. It is estimated that there are a minimum of 630 breeding pairs of Cape Vultures in the Eastern Cape. Two of the largest core colonies in the Eastern Cape are at Msikaba, the river which forms the southernmost boundary of Mkambathi Nature Reserve, and Mthentu, its northernmost border. The declaration of this IBA (Important Bird Area) by BirdLife SA is important for the recolonisation of smaller satellite colonies.

Travel Advisory

The geography Pondoland, a coastal strip about 50km wide, stretches from the Mthatha river mouth in the south to the Mtamvuna river in the north. It is a mountainous area with grassveld, thornveld and subtropical forests in the humid coastal valleys.

The roadsThe N2 runs through the least attractive part of the former Transkei in the Eastern Cape. Get off it at Mthatha and take the R61, which is an excellent road and a good springboard for all the coastal resorts mentioned in this article.
Don’t count on taking seldom-used backroads and shortcuts. The going will be very slow indeed and you are unlikely to score on travelling time. The rural scenery, although gorgeous, will not be very different from what you see along the bigger roads.

The vehicleDeflate your tyre pressure as soon as you get off the R61. It will make for a far more comfortable ride.
The gravel roads are demanding, and we often used shift mode to select gears manually. In the dry season any Toyota sedan should be able to cope.

PlanningThe Slingsby Wild Coast map is excellent, while Tracks for Africa tends to get disoriented in this neck of the woods.

ProvisionsBring your own. Essentials can be purchased at the towns, although the extremely rural nature of the Transkei and the lack of roads tend to makelocal stores a hive of shopping activity.

More places to stayUpmarket Mbotyi River Lodge, just across the road from the campsite, has sprawling lawns right down to the beach.
If your budget obliges, the honeymoon setting of luxurious Umngazi River Bungalows & Spa won’t disappoint. The resort is one huge grassy, leafy, manicured, indigenous garden and during our visit it was all geared up to host the annual Pondo Pedal MTB race.
At Coffee Bay, White Clay Resort on the Hole in the Wall road offers secure sea-facing camping and self-catering bungalows, with a private beach for swimming at low tide.